Top-20 finish for Kelso cyclist Oscar Onley at world championships
Borders rider Oscar Onley managed a top-20 finish in the elite men’s road-race wrapping up this year’s International Cycling Union road world championships in Canada on Sunday.
The Kelso 23-year-old completed that 170-mile race at Montreal in six hours, 20 minutes and 13 seconds, 3:09 behind US winner Brandon McNulty.
Australian Michael Matthews was runner-up to the Arizona 28-year-old in 6:17:17, with the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel third in the same time.
Onley was the second Briton to cross the finishing line after West Yorkshire’s Tom Pidcock, seventh as one of six riders to clock 6:17:18.
His top-20 placing in Canada came two weeks on from winning Scotland’s first grand tour jersey for almost 40 years at 2026’s Vuelta a Espana, his white jersey for fastest young rider being his homeland’s first since Glasgow’s Philippa York, known as Robert Millar at the time, earned a mountains jersey at 1987’s Giro d’Italia.
Greater Manchester’s Adam Yates was the only other Great Britain team member to go the distance, placing 31st of 58 finishers, 6:37 off the pace.
Their GB teammates Fred Wright, Callum Thornley, Mark Donovan, James Shaw and Finlay Pickering were among almost 130 riders not to finish.
Welcoming that two-week turnaround from his sixth-placed finish overall at the Vuelta a Espana, Onley told Scottish Cycling’s Facebook page: “Having this two weeks after is quite a good timeframe.
“It’s not too close but it’s also not too far away so you start to lose form.”
The Borderer was one of seven members of English-based team Netcompany Ineos contesting Sunday’s race, along with Norway’s Tobias Foss and Embret Svestad-Bardseng, Australia’s Jack Haig, Colombia’s Brandon Rivera, American Artem Shmidt and Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski.