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Charlton, who is from Sherburn Village, was part of the British team pursuit squad that finished second at the Worlds, losing narrowly to hosts Denmark in the final. Having teamed up with Charlie Tanfield, Ollie Wood and Ethan Hayter, the 21-year-old was delighted to be coming away from his first senior Worlds with a medal. That, though, was only the start of it.
Returning to the track the following day for the qualifying round of the 4km individual pursuit, Charlton, who rides with Hetton Hawks, recorded a time of 3:59.304, beating the previous World record time set by Italian Filippo Ganna when he claimed World Championship gold two years earlier. It was a stunning achievement from the ‘Durham Dynamo’, who shook his head in disbelief as the score flashed up on the giant scoreboard before celebrating with his national-team coach, Ben Greenwood.
“It’s not bad it is,” said Charlton, a former Under-23 National Time Trial champion, in the immediate aftermath of his World record ride. “It’s not actually sunk in yet, and I think it will be a little while before it does. “In the last nine months, I’ve been training terribly.
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.” Nevertheless, Charlton, a former student at Belmont Comprehensive School in Durham, conceded it will still a huge surprise to have lowered the World record, not least because the Danish track was not really supposed to be conducive to extremely fast times.
“The conditions, like the air pressure and the temperature, are bang average,” said Charlton, in the aftermath of his qualifying run, which saved an incredible 11 seconds off his personal best. “The track itself is pretty slow and pretty tricky to ride because it’s got really long straights and tight bankings. “On a velodrome, the straights are where you slow down, and the turns are where you make up that speed.
It’s not built for speed that track.” Charlton’s ride took him through to the final in Ballerup, where he lined up against Italian Jonathan Milan. Milan always had the upper hand in the gold-medal race, opening up an advantage of more than a second over the opening three kilometres.
Charlton began to edge back in the final kilometre of the race, but Milan held on to cross the finishing line in a time of 3:59.153, taking the World record off Charlton and depriving him of a gold medal. Even so, the North-Easterner was able to reflect on a hugely-successful championships that announced his arrival onto the senior world stage with a bang.
Charlton is set to be a key figure within the British track cycling set-up as the team head into the new Olympic cycle ahead of the 2028 games in Los Angeles - even if he is no longer a World record holder. “It was only for six hours or so, but it’s more than most people have a World record for,” said Charlton. “Most people don’t have one at all.
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