TEEN cycling ace Ioan Hepburn stormed to two golds and a silver at the World Junior Track Championships in Belgium, and now heads to Manchester to train full-time with the GB senior team under Olympic legend Sir Jason Kenny.

Discovered at a watt bike talent session at Usk Show in 2022, the 18-year-old Pedalabikeaway ‘Fodders’ graduate signed off his junior career in style in Zolder, taking GB’s first individual men's sprint title in 15 years before adding gold in the keirin ahead of Italy’s Matteo Ghirelli and Russia’s Mikhail Demish.

Kenny was the last GB junior to achieve both junior world titles exactly 20 years ago, before he went on to win seven Olympic golds.

Teen cycling star Ioan Hepburn flies the flag at the World Junior Track Championships
Teen cycling star Ioan Hepburn flies the flag at the World Junior Track Championships. (GB Track Cycling)

And cycling with Kristian Larigo and Charlie Holt in the team sprint, former Monmouth Comprehensive student Hepburn also added team sprint silver behind the Russian trio.

The stellar showing followed selection for Wales at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where illness sadly forced him out of the bronze medal team race off against Trinidad & Tobago, before bouncing back to break the GB junior sprint record with 9.807 seconds in the individual sprint – 0.08 seconds faster than Sir Chris Hoy's 2008 Olympic record winning time.

And of the chance to now work full time with Kenny, he told BBC Wales Sport: "I'm looking forward to getting up there, learning from some of the senior riders who have been to the Olympic Games and trying to copy their practices and apply my own touch to them.”

Ioan's passion for cycling actually began on downhill mountain bikes aged eight at the Cannop Pedalabikeaway centre, although a bad crash in 2021 saw him lose a kidney which could have derailed his development.

But the teen showed his resilience by bouncing back to race within months, and was then talent spotted by Beicio Cymru and persuaded to try track cycling.

And Pedalabikeaway posted after his world sprint title: “Ioan Hepburn has only gone and become the fastest junior in the world!

“So proud of this ex-Fodder and later cafe staff team member now standing on the top box! What a ride!”

On his national record at the Commonwealths, Ioan added: “"If I'm being honest, I was hungry for the world record (9.738s), but for something like that to happen, everything has to align; conditions on the track and everything.

"To walk away with a new British junior record, I was absolutely over the moon."

And looking ahead, he told BBC Wales Sport: "The dream would be winning a medal in team sprint at the next Commonwealth Games and winning a medal in the individual sprint as well.

"And now I've won two world golds, the next goal would be two Olympic golds. That would be really special. That's not going to come easily.

"It's a really tight, fast team in Manchester, but if I can just keep doing what I'm doing, hopefully the legs will do the same.

"I will be one of the youngest there, but I definitely won't be the slowest there as well," he smiled.

"Back-to-back days of racing, they're definitely hard. Late nights, early mornings, but we love it, and it's what we're there for," he said.

"To have the highs of Commonwealth Games, carry that into Worlds and then come away with two golds, it's more than I could have dreamed of."