'Total shock' - Josh Charlton breaks Filippo Ganna's individual pursuit world record

Update: Josh Charlton's individual pursuit world record was bettered again in the final by Italy's Jonathan Milan, who won the world title with a time of 3.59.153. Charlton's benchmark stood for around six hours. "It's more than most people have a world record for. Most people don't have one at all," he said.

Great Britain's Josh Charlton set a staggering, and very unexpected, world record in the 4km individual pursuit at the UCI Track World Championships on Friday afternoon.

The 21-year-old, who is making his debut at the senior championships, bettered Filippo Ganna’s previous benchmark with a 3:59.304, making him only the third person in history to clock under four minutes.

The record came during the event's qualifying round, and triggered a surprise ripple of applause from the early crowds inside Denmark's national velodrome. Charlton himself shook his head in disbelief as he looked up at the timings board. His national coach, Ben Greenwood, held his arms out and smiled, before turning to celebrate with the rest of the GB staff.

"It’s not bad, is it?" Charlton said to Cycling Weekly afterwards. “I mean, it’s just total shock, really. It’s an IP, so you’ve got to give it full gas in the qualis. You don’t know what everyone else is going to do."

Charlton's time, 11 seconds faster than his previous PB, meant he qualified top, setting up a gold-medal final with Italy's Jonathan Milan on Friday evening.

"In the last nine months, [I’ve been training] terribly," the former under-23 national time trial champion said. "This last month, [I’ve had the] best legs of my life. I got pretty badly ill in March, April time, I gave myself chronic fatigue, and that was really tough to come back from. It’s been a really slow, methodical process ever since then.

"This last month, it just feels like I’ve gone from strength to strength in my training, in my numbers, and it’s gone really well when it needed to."

Charlton’s new IP record is 0.332 seconds faster than Ganna’s previous best, set in 2022. The Italian’s ride came six days after he broke the Hour Record, when he won the world title inside Paris’s Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome, a track considered to be among the best for record-setting.

Charlton broke that benchmark inside the Ballerup Super Arena under what he called "average" conditions.

"The conditions, like the air pressure and the temperature, are bang-average," he said. "The track itself is pretty slow. It's pretty tricky to ride because it’s got really long straights and tight bankings, and on a velodrome the straights are where you slow down, and the turns are where you make up speed. It’s not built for speed that track."

The ride also came less than 24 hours after the Brit competed in the team pursuit final, claiming a silver medal against the hosts Denmark.

"It's unbelievable," Charlton said. "It's not actually sunk in yet, and I think it will be a little while before it does."