Golden Week for Welsh Cycling as Josh Tarling, Anna Morris, and Emma Finucane Shine on the World Stage

In the heat and colour of Santiago, Chile, three riders from Wales — Josh Tarling, Anna Morris, and Emma Finucane — stood on the Track Cycling World Championships podium, their medals glinting gold and silver beneath the floodlights.

Between them, they captured two world titles and a silver, cementing Wales’ growing reputation as a powerhouse of international track cycling and adding to Great Britain’s overall success at the championships.

For the young and prodigiously talented Tarling, it was a landmark triumph. 

The 21-year-old from Aberaeron stormed to gold in the men’s points race, his first world title, and Great Britain’s first gold of the week. 

In a race of relentless endurance and strategy, Tarling amassed 750 points over 40km, outpacing American Peter Moore’s 675 to seize victory with style and assurance.

“I didn't know how [my first World Championships] would be or how it would feel, so not knowing was scary,” Tarling admitted afterwards. 

“It felt pretty good. I think it was good that I got those early points in so I knew the legs were there.”

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His command of the race — attacking early, securing maximum points in sprint three, and later gaining a lap — showcased the same measured aggression that has made him one of the sport’s brightest young stars. 

Tarling’s gold also made him the first British man to win the world points race title since Jonathan Dibben in 2016, confirming that his seamless transition from road to track continues to pay off.

Only hours later, another Welsh rider lit up the velodrome.

Anna Morris, the reigning world champion from Cardiff, successfully defended her individual pursuit crown in commanding fashion. 

Her victory over Great Britain teammate Josie Knight by more than two seconds underscored both her composure and her rising stature among the world’s elite endurance riders.

“It’s a new experience warming up with the person you're going to race against,” Morris said after the all-British final. 

“We've both trained really hard for this so it was just nice that we could both go out and leave it all on the track and if either won we were both going to be really happy for each other.”

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Morris, already a bronze medallist in the team pursuit earlier in the week, wasn’t done yet.
 
She returned to the track for the women’s points race, where a perfectly timed sprint earned her a third medal — silver — to cap off an extraordinary championships.

“I'm really, really happy,” she said. “I wasn't sure when it finished — I thought it was top five but my coach told me I was second. It has been a solid week on the whole.”

But perhaps the most emotionally charged story belonged to Emma Finucane. 

The 22-year-old from Carmarthen — already a three-time Olympic medallist and one of the brightest sprinting talents in the world — endured a bruising setback earlier in the week when an error saw her miss out on a place in the sprint semi-finals, ending her bid to defend her title.

READ MORE: Anna Morris In Shock As She Follows Emma Finucane To Become Second Welsh World Champion

Instead of dwelling on disappointment, Finucane channelled her frustration into the keirin, a notoriously unpredictable race that demands both speed and instinct. 

In a thrilling final, she powered through the field to take silver behind Japan’s Mina Sato, regaining her place on the world podium and reminding the cycling world of her resilience.

“I'm really proud,” Finucane said afterward. 

“After the sprint, I was really gutted and it took me a while to process it, but I think bouncing back and doing four rides that I didn't think even six months ago that I was capable of doing, I've grown so much and we'll keep working on it.

“I can take a lot [from this World Championships]. They say the highs when you're winning things is sweet, but you can only feel that when you get the sour. It's year one of the cycle, I've so much more growing [to do].”

Her silver added another gleam to a remarkable tally for Welsh cyclists — two golds and two silvers — across a single World Championships, a feat unmatched in recent memory.

Together, Tarling, Morris, and Finucane have come to embody the new era of Welsh cycling — fiercely competitive, technically brilliant, and quietly confident on the global stage. 

They follow in the footsteps of pioneers like Geraint Thomas and Becky James, but there is a freshness to this generation.

Great Britain finished the week with 14 medals — four gold, eight silver, and two bronze — placing second behind the Netherlands in the overall standings. 

Yet, it was the Welsh contingent who provided the heartbeat of that success. 

Speaking at the close of the event, Great Britain sprint coach and seven-time Olympic champion Sir Jason Kenny hailed the breadth of talent emerging across the home nations.

 “We've missed out on some medals that we felt we could have been competitive for, but we've come away with a really good haul with some new medallists, so it's really exciting,” he said. 

“The fact that we were on the podium more than ever shows that we were competitive across the board, and it's really positive.”