CHARLIE TANFIELD and Josh Charlton were both celebrating after England’s team pursuit squad claimed a Commonwealth Games gold medal in Glasgow.
Charlton, who is from Sherburn in County Durham, raced as part of the team in the heats as England qualified to meet Australia in the final.
The English quartet were a couple of seconds slower than the Australian team in the heats, with Charlton being swapped out for the final.
Great Ayton’s Tanfield remained in the team though, linking up with Henry Hobbs, Ethan Vernon and Will Tidball, and the English quartet triumphed in a nail-biting final.
A strong start saw England take an early lead, before the teams battled it out with Australia taking a lead of 0.035 seconds at the halfway stage.
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The action yo-yoed throughout the second half of the race until England gradually edged away to take a confident win and claim England’s first track cycling gold of the Games.
Tanfield, who was part of the Great Britain team pursuit line-up that was nudged into silver by the Australians in the Paris 2024 Olympic final, said: “I feel like my whole career has been about the team pursuit and it being us versus the Aussies.
“It feels great. It’s a good rivalry and it’s really motivating. We’ve got some young guys coming through now so it’s really exciting for the future.”
Welsh trio Emma Finucane, Rhian Edmunds and Lowri Thomas edged out England’s Katy Marchant, Sophia Capewell and Rhianna Parris-Smith to win gold in the women’s team sprint.
Wales set the fastest time in qualification and built on the bronze medal they won in Birmingham four years ago by blazing home in a new Commonwealth Games-record time of 46.760secs.
Scotland’s Neil Fachie won his sixth Commonwealth Games gold medal after partnering with Aaron Pope to win the men’s tandem B 1,000m time trial, ahead of Wales’s James Ball, piloted by Matthew Rotherham.
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