The third day of competition brought a sense of déjà vu in Rio, as Great Britain continued their dominance, taking home two world titles and two silver medals for the third day in a row at the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships.

Neil Fachie took an incredible 20th world title alongside pilot Matt Rotherham in the men’s tandem 1km time-trial while Jaco van Gass took the men’s C3 individual pursuit tile for the first time.

It was battle of the Brit tandems again tonight, this time in the men’s 1km time-trial. Newly crowned national champions James Ball and pilot Steffan Lloyd laid the gauntlet down, qualifying fastest with a time of 1:00.469, ahead of defending world champions Neil Fachie and Matt Rotherham who qualified third fastest for the evening’s final.

It was all to play for as Ball and Lloyd backed up their qualifying time with an even faster ride, but Fachie and Rotherham had saved their best for when it really counted and delivered a flawless ride in 1:00.343 to take the title. The result gave Fachie an astounding 20th world championship title, while Ball and Lloyd completed the British 1-2 taking the silver medal.

On winning his 20th title, Fachie said: “Coming in I didn’t feel we were in great form, we were coming in hoping to win but it wasn’t clear cut and I think the result shows that with how close it was, so it was hopeful. We've certainly been improving in the past few weeks so I thought we were in a good position to be challenging for it, but it could’ve gone either way and it nearly did go the other way.”

Matt Rotherham added: “We are all fight for the spots to try and go to Paris so hopefully we’ve done enough in that respect. I’m excited to get back home and put the work in to hopefully get another Paralympic title. Hopefully we get selected and the real work will start when we get back; today was a really important stepping stone towards that.”

Jaco Van Gass and Fin Graham found themselves head-to-head in the men’s C3 individual pursuit final for the second year in a row, after Graham qualified fastest in 3:22.820 with van Gass just half a second behind him.

In the final, van Gass started strong, taking an early lead of over two seconds, but Graham was not willing to let the gap widen and by 1250m in, van Gass’ lead was down to 1.7 seconds. Graham continued to gradually gain on his competitor, bringing the gap to 1.3 seconds with one lap to go. Graham pushed hard but it was not enough to retain his title and after a fantastic ride, van Gass took the rainbow jersey in a time of 3:24.774.

On winning his first title in this event, van Gass said: “I've been chasing this title for many years now and I came close so many times, I've always been on the other end. My first time when i had a sniff of it was in 2020, in Canada where i was a couple of hundredths of seconds off. I then went on to Tokyo to win it in the Paralympics but I've never won it in a world championships and it’s amazing to finally have this one in the collection.”

Archie Atkinson delivered a steady ride in a cagey men's C4 scratch race that was mainly dominated by French Kevin le Cunff, who made a gutsy solo breakaway which allowed him to take a lap on the rest of the bunch. Atkinson rode confidently, keeping control of the peloton for the majority of the race, but last-minute moves from French le Rousseau and USA’s Larsen left him out of the running for the podium and he finished 9th overall.

Morgan Newberry just missed out on the chance to ride for a medal this evening, setting the fifth fastest time with a great ride in the women’s C5 individual pursuit.

Kadeena Cox added more points to her omnium total with an 11th place finish in the women’s C4 individual pursuit.

More flying 200m events were raced as part of the omnium event, with Katie Toft finishing second in the women's C1 category, whilst Daphne Schrager and Millie Cass finished in second and fifth respectively. In the men’s C5 event, Blaine Hunt took an impressive second place finish, while Will Bjergfelt finished 18th. Bjergfelt and Hunt also raced the men’s C5 scratch race qualification heats finishing second and fourth respectively to make it into Sunday‘s final.

After three days of competition, Great Britain now has six gold and six silver medals and stays comfortably at the top of the medal table.

Tomorrow’s penultimate day of competition will see the 1km time-trials contested for the men’s C2, C3, C4 and C5 categories, the women's C4 scratch race and the men’s and women’s tandem individual pursuits.

You can watch live from 1pm UK time on YouTube and follow results on British Cycling’s social media channels.