Sporting a prominent handlebar moustache American rider Ashton Lambie won the gold in the men's pursuit at the track cycling world championships on Friday.

The 30-year-old from Nebraska with the 1900's style moustache was runner up at the event in 2020 but Friday he beat rising Italian star Jonathan Milan in the final, while Ineos star Filippo Ganna took bronze after his shock failure to make the final.

Lambie is a gravel racer by origin who came to the track late and made the headlines in August by breaking the 4km 4 minute mark, albeit at altitude in Mexico.

Earlier Jeffrey Hoogland's sizzling 58.418sec ride won gold in the men's 1km time trial after France's Benjamin Thomas won the 160-lap men's points race.

At a packed Roubaix indoor stadium, the Dutchman Hoogland was over a second faster than 23-year-old Nicholas Paul of Trinidad, who also broke one minute in 59.791sec, only to watch Hoogland set out last in an event where riders race the clock solo one after the other.

The 40km points race contains 16 sprints and Thomas had been trailing by some distance to Belgian veteran Kenny De Ketele before a storming finale after drawing level with 20 laps to go.

"I know him and I doubted I'd catch him because he's a foxy one," Thomas said of De Ketele.

"I knew he was going to make my life hard so I just went all in and the crowd got behind me."

Friday is the third day of the world track cycling championships at Roubaix in northern France near the Belgian border.