2026 National Circuit Championships: preview and startlists
On Friday evening the national criterium titles are settled on Aberystwyth's technical seafront circuit—Matt Bostock the form man in the open race, Kate Richardson defending in the women's.
Two wins in four days, and the one jersey he wants still belongs to someone else. Matt Bostock arrives in Aberystwyth on Friday as the form rider of the British criterium season—winner of the revived City of London Nocturne, then a third Fort Vale Colne Grand Prix inside a week—but the man he beat into second at the Nocturne, Cameron Mason, is the rider in the champion’s stripes. The open national circuit title is the prize, and it is far from settled.
The women’s race carries its own tension. Kate Richardson defends the title she won here twelve months ago, and does so in the form of her life, but the criterium specialists who lit up the last fortnight have not all made the trip west. It sets up an evening that should reward racecraft over raw engine—exactly what a national circuit championship is for.
Featured image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
What is it?
The circuit championship is the middle act of the Lloyds National Road Championships, sitting between Thursday’s time trials in Lampeter and Sunday’s road races, and it is the most concentrated of the three. Where the time trial rewards sustained power and the road race rewards endurance, the criterium asks a different question: who can hold position, corner at speed and accelerate out of a tight town-centre circuit for the better part of an hour, then finish it off.
It is not a new title. A national circuit championship for professionals was first held in 1979; the men’s race became an open event in 1996, and a women’s championship was added in 1998. Recent winners read as a roll-call of British crit and track talent. In the open race, Matt Bostock took the title in 2022, Oliver Wood in 2023 and Lewis Askey in 2024, before Cameron Mason’s win last year; among the women, Josie Nelson was the 2022 victor, Megan Barker won in 2023, Emma Jeffers in 2024 and Kate Richardson in 2025. Last year’s championships were held on this same Aberystwyth circuit, so most of the field arrives having raced these streets twelve months ago. The discipline has found a wider stage in 2026, too, with the return of the City of London Nocturne as a UCI-registered pro criterium.
The route
The race uses the same 1.6-kilometre circuit as 2025, run anticlockwise and built for spectacle. It starts on the seafront before turning into the town-centre streets, passing the Bandstand on each lap, taking a left into Pier Street and along Portland Street, then into Queens Road before rejoining Victoria Terrace to cross the line. It as full of technical twists and turns, and that is the point: there is no long drag where a strong rider can simply ride away, and no quiet metre in which to recover.
On a circuit this short and broken, the race is governed by position and repetition. Every corner is an acceleration, every acceleration a small selection, and the riders who waste energy fighting for the front will pay for it in the closing laps. It can be settled by a bunch sprint or by move from specialists able to hold a tempo nobody wants – or is able – to chase.
Timings
The circuit races take place on the evening of Friday 26 June in Aberystwyth. British Cycling tells us that the women’s championship opens the programme at 18:15, with the open race the night’s finale at 20:00; each is decided over 50 minutes plus a final five laps of the circuit.
How to watch
Both races will be streamed live on the British Cycling YouTube channel, with the women’s coverage from 18:00 and the open from 19:50, and the circuit race is also being shown on TNT Sport 2.
Riders to watch
Women’s race
Kate Richardson (Handsling Alba Development Road Team) defends the title she won on this circuit last year, and could hardly be in better shape. That win came from a three-rider move; this month she took the Tour of the Reservoir with a solo attack and was beaten by less than a bike length into second at the Nocturne. A European team-pursuit champion on the track and a former Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix winner, she has the engine, the speed and the racecraft for a finish like this—and she is not even Handsling Alba’s only option. Izzy Sharp, runner-up to Richardson in this race last year, is now her teammate, one of 10 Handsling Alba riders on the startlist—a numerical advantage no rival can match.
Kate Richardson wins the 2025 title ahead of Izzy Sharp. Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
The surprise is who has not brought numbers. DAS-Hutchinson, the team that swept the domestic women’s titles in 2025, have entered only two riders, seemingly saving their strength for Sunday’s road race—Rapha Super-League and National Road Series leader Morven Yeoman is not on the circuit startlist at all. It leaves their pair to freelance against Handsling Alba’s numbers, but they are well chosen. Josie Knight, an Olympic medallist and former world champion on the track, was fifth here last year and has the explosive speed a short circuit rewards; Sophie Lewis finished fourth, and is the 2024 Colne winner and third there this month.
Megan Barker (Rapha Cycling Club), the 2023 national circuit champion and a team-pursuit world champion, was second at Colne. Two more series winners deepen the field: Robyn Clay (Team Picnic PostNL), the 2025 National Circuit Series champion now in the WorldTour—and, until this season, a DAS-Hutchinson rider herself—and Eilidh Shaw (UAE Development Team), runner-up at the 2024 circuit championships and the first woman to win the National Road and Circuit Series in the same year. Jessica Roberts (Private Member), third here last year after lighting the race up with its decisive attack, knows how to be there at the finish.
Carys Lloyd at last year’s race. Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
Beyond them, Carys Lloyd (Movistar Team), Xan Crees (OGT p/b USE) and Jenny Holl (Loughborough Lightning) all have the pedigree to feature, while Jo Tindley (Smurfit Westrock), a vastly experienced fast finisher – and the 2021 champion of course – was prominent in the chase at the Nocturne. Junior Zoe Roche (camsmajaco), already a winner of fast city-centre crits, made the front split in London, while first-year junior Peggy Knox (Airtox-Carl Ras) is another junior who could threaten the podium placings.
Men’s race
Matt Bostock (Rapha Cycling Club) is the form pick and, on current evidence, the favourite. The 2022 national circuit champion and reigning Rapha Super-League champion was third on this circuit last year, and arrives in the form of his life: he won the Nocturne from a four-rider move, then rode clear at Colne to win alone, six seconds up—his second victory in four days, and a third in Colne. He is the most complete finisher in the field and sits second in the open Super-League.
Cameron Mason (centre) Bjorn Koerdt (left) and Matt Bostock (right) on last year’s podium. Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
He will not have it to himself. Cameron Mason (Alpecin–Premier Tech Development Team) is the defending champion—he won here last year from a two-up move—and a four-time British cyclocross champion whose handling is made for a circuit like this; he was the aggressor at the Nocturne before Bostock edged him. Thomas Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) arrives as the 2025 National Circuit Series winner and current Rapha Super-League leader, and was seventh on this circuit last year—a threat built on consistency, which is exactly why he is dangerous over 50 minutes. Wheelbase back him with Aaron King, second at Colne and twelfth here last year, and Tim Shoreman, a winner of the Otley Grand Prix, a Great Britain track rider and bronze medallist at the 2023 circuit championships. That is the depth to control the front.
Rapha Cycling Club can match them for leaders. Oliver Wood, the 2023 national circuit champion and an Olympic team-pursuit medallist, was fifth here last year and won this season’s Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix; he brings track speed in his own right rather than merely a lead-out for Bostock. If it comes down to a bunch kick, the quickest finisher may be Noah Hobbs (EF Education–EasyPost), sixth on this circuit last year as a teenager and since stepped up to the WorldTour, where he took his first professional win at June’s Heistse Pijl. His younger brother Henry Hobbs (Team Visma–Lease a Bike Development) is here too, fresh from a stage win at the Oberösterreich Rundfahrt—a family double on the startlist.
Alec Briggs in action last year. Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
The most intriguing outsider is Jim Brown (L39ION of Los Angeles), thirteenth here last year and now racing full-time for the leading American criterium team; he has already won downtown crits at the Redlands Classic and Easton this season, pure circuit pedigree few here can claim. Frank Longstaff (DAS Richardsons), third at Colne, and Alec Briggs (TEKKERZ CC), one of the most experienced crit riders in the country and part of the decisive Nocturne move, round out a deep list of finishers.
Two wins in four days, and the one jersey he wants still belongs to someone else. Matt Bostock arrives in Aberystwyth on Friday as the form rider of the British criterium season—winner of the revived City of London Nocturne, then a third Fort Vale Colne Grand Prix inside a week—but the man he beat into second at the Nocturne, Cameron Mason, is the rider in the champion’s stripes. The open national circuit title is the prize, and it is far from settled.
The women’s race carries its own tension. Kate Richardson defends the title she won here twelve months ago, and does so in the form of her life, but the criterium specialists who lit up the last fortnight have not all made the trip west. It sets up an evening that should reward racecraft over raw engine—exactly what a national circuit championship is for.
Featured image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
What is it?
The circuit championship is the middle act of the Lloyds National Road Championships, sitting between Thursday’s time trials in Lampeter and Sunday’s road races, and it is the most concentrated of the three. Where the time trial rewards sustained power and the road race rewards endurance, the criterium asks a different question: who can hold position, corner at speed and accelerate out of a tight town-centre circuit for the better part of an hour, then finish it off.
It is not a new title. A national circuit championship for professionals was first held in 1979; the men’s race became an open event in 1996, and a women’s championship was added in 1998. Recent winners read as a roll-call of British crit and track talent. In the open race, Matt Bostock took the title in 2022, Oliver Wood in 2023 and Lewis Askey in 2024, before Cameron Mason’s win last year; among the women, Josie Nelson was the 2022 victor, Megan Barker won in 2023, Emma Jeffers in 2024 and Kate Richardson in 2025. Last year’s championships were held on this same Aberystwyth circuit, so most of the field arrives having raced these streets twelve months ago. The discipline has found a wider stage in 2026, too, with the return of the City of London Nocturne as a UCI-registered pro criterium.
The route
The race uses the same 1.6-kilometre circuit as 2025, run anticlockwise and built for spectacle. It starts on the seafront before turning into the town-centre streets, passing the Bandstand on each lap, taking a left into Pier Street and along Portland Street, then into Queens Road before rejoining Victoria Terrace to cross the line. It as full of technical twists and turns, and that is the point: there is no long drag where a strong rider can simply ride away, and no quiet metre in which to recover.
On a circuit this short and broken, the race is governed by position and repetition. Every corner is an acceleration, every acceleration a small selection, and the riders who waste energy fighting for the front will pay for it in the closing laps. It can be settled by a bunch sprint or by move from specialists able to hold a tempo nobody wants – or is able – to chase.
Timings
The circuit races take place on the evening of Friday 26 June in Aberystwyth. British Cycling tells us that the women’s championship opens the programme at 18:15, with the open race the night’s finale at 20:00; each is decided over 50 minutes plus a final five laps of the circuit.
How to watch
Both races will be streamed live on the British Cycling YouTube channel, with the women’s coverage from 18:00 and the open from 19:50, and the circuit race is also being shown on TNT Sport 2.
Riders to watch
Women’s race
Kate Richardson (Handsling Alba Development Road Team) defends the title she won on this circuit last year, and could hardly be in better shape. That win came from a three-rider move; this month she took the Tour of the Reservoir with a solo attack and was beaten by less than a bike length into second at the Nocturne. A European team-pursuit champion on the track and a former Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix winner, she has the engine, the speed and the racecraft for a finish like this—and she is not even Handsling Alba’s only option. Izzy Sharp, runner-up to Richardson in this race last year, is now her teammate, one of 10 Handsling Alba riders on the startlist—a numerical advantage no rival can match.
The surprise is who has not brought numbers. DAS-Hutchinson, the team that swept the domestic women’s titles in 2025, have entered only two riders, seemingly saving their strength for Sunday’s road race—Rapha Super-League and National Road Series leader Morven Yeoman is not on the circuit startlist at all. It leaves their pair to freelance against Handsling Alba’s numbers, but they are well chosen. Josie Knight, an Olympic medallist and former world champion on the track, was fifth here last year and has the explosive speed a short circuit rewards; Sophie Lewis finished fourth, and is the 2024 Colne winner and third there this month.
Megan Barker (Rapha Cycling Club), the 2023 national circuit champion and a team-pursuit world champion, was second at Colne. Two more series winners deepen the field: Robyn Clay (Team Picnic PostNL), the 2025 National Circuit Series champion now in the WorldTour—and, until this season, a DAS-Hutchinson rider herself—and Eilidh Shaw (UAE Development Team), runner-up at the 2024 circuit championships and the first woman to win the National Road and Circuit Series in the same year. Jessica Roberts (Private Member), third here last year after lighting the race up with its decisive attack, knows how to be there at the finish.
Beyond them, Carys Lloyd (Movistar Team), Xan Crees (OGT p/b USE) and Jenny Holl (Loughborough Lightning) all have the pedigree to feature, while Jo Tindley (Smurfit Westrock), a vastly experienced fast finisher – and the 2021 champion of course – was prominent in the chase at the Nocturne. Junior Zoe Roche (camsmajaco), already a winner of fast city-centre crits, made the front split in London, while first-year junior Peggy Knox (Airtox-Carl Ras) is another junior who could threaten the podium placings.
Men’s race
Matt Bostock (Rapha Cycling Club) is the form pick and, on current evidence, the favourite. The 2022 national circuit champion and reigning Rapha Super-League champion was third on this circuit last year, and arrives in the form of his life: he won the Nocturne from a four-rider move, then rode clear at Colne to win alone, six seconds up—his second victory in four days, and a third in Colne. He is the most complete finisher in the field and sits second in the open Super-League.
He will not have it to himself. Cameron Mason (Alpecin–Premier Tech Development Team) is the defending champion—he won here last year from a two-up move—and a four-time British cyclocross champion whose handling is made for a circuit like this; he was the aggressor at the Nocturne before Bostock edged him. Thomas Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) arrives as the 2025 National Circuit Series winner and current Rapha Super-League leader, and was seventh on this circuit last year—a threat built on consistency, which is exactly why he is dangerous over 50 minutes. Wheelbase back him with Aaron King, second at Colne and twelfth here last year, and Tim Shoreman, a winner of the Otley Grand Prix, a Great Britain track rider and bronze medallist at the 2023 circuit championships. That is the depth to control the front.
Rapha Cycling Club can match them for leaders. Oliver Wood, the 2023 national circuit champion and an Olympic team-pursuit medallist, was fifth here last year and won this season’s Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix; he brings track speed in his own right rather than merely a lead-out for Bostock. If it comes down to a bunch kick, the quickest finisher may be Noah Hobbs (EF Education–EasyPost), sixth on this circuit last year as a teenager and since stepped up to the WorldTour, where he took his first professional win at June’s Heistse Pijl. His younger brother Henry Hobbs (Team Visma–Lease a Bike Development) is here too, fresh from a stage win at the Oberösterreich Rundfahrt—a family double on the startlist.
The most intriguing outsider is Jim Brown (L39ION of Los Angeles), thirteenth here last year and now racing full-time for the leading American criterium team; he has already won downtown crits at the Redlands Classic and Easton this season, pure circuit pedigree few here can claim. Frank Longstaff (DAS Richardsons), third at Colne, and Alec Briggs (TEKKERZ CC), one of the most experienced crit riders in the country and part of the decisive Nocturne move, round out a deep list of finishers.
Provisional startlists
Share this:
Discover more from The British Continental
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.