American Chloe Dygert is a strong candidate for her first elite gold medal at the UCI Cycling World Championships, which opened Thursday.

The first edition of the unified world championships combines road, track, mountain biking, BMX, indoor cycling, trials, gran fondo, and para-cycling road and track title events.

Daigert set the fastest time in the women's individual pursuit qualifying, running the 4 km race 2.388 seconds faster than runner-up Franziska Brause of Germany. Dygert and Brause will face off in the gold medal final on Thursday night.

Bryony Botha (New Zealand) and Nea Evans (Great Britain) will compete for the silver medal. Botha was nearly 1.5 seconds faster than Evans in qualifying.

The British women's team sprint team dominated Germany in the qualifying round, posting the fastest time, 0.395 seconds faster than the team of defending champion Pauline Grabosch, Emma Hintze, and Leah Friedrich. Teams from China, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, and Poland also advanced to the next round.

Great Britain's Lauren Bell, Sophie Capewell, and Emma Finucane will face Poland in the next round, starting at 7:03 pm BST. The final round will take place after the women's individual pursuit final.

In the elite men's team pursuit qualifying round, Denmark finished more than two seconds ahead of New Zealand, with Italy in third place by 3.592 seconds. Defending champion Great Britain was eliminated in the qualifying round.

The Netherlands dominated the men's team sprint qualifying, with Roy van den Bergh, Harry Lovreisen, and Jeffrey Hoogland finishing about 0.5 seconds ahead of defending champion Australia in the three-lap race.

Poland, Japan, France, Great Britain, Germany, and China also advanced to the next men's team sprint qualifier on Friday, with the final to follow after Friday's program.

Australia's Lee Hoffman, Matthew Glatzer, and Thomas Cornish will face Germany in the first round, the Netherlands will face China, and Great Britain will face Poland.

The men's team pursuit is next on Friday, with the final on Saturday; the full UCI Track World Championships schedule includes 11 elite men's and women's events (individual pursuit, team pursuit, individual sprint, team sprint, keirin, Madison, omnium, scratch, Points Race, Elimination Race, Men's 1km Time Trial, and Women's 500m TT) will be included.