Niall Treacy wins the bronze medal in Men's 1000m in the ISU CNSG Short Track World Championships in Montreal, Canada, March 2026 © ISU

It is Richard Shoebridge, British Ice Skating’s head performance coach, who best sums up just what Niall Treacy has done in securing his nation’s first individual men’s Short Track Speed Skating World Championship medal for 30 years. 

“You think of all the people he has had to go up against, all the budgets you are going up against in the other teams and it’s an absolutely phenomenal achievement,” Shoebridge said, after watching his charge grab 1000m bronze on the final day in Montreal. 

“It is a fantastically proud moment for me, obviously for Niall and for the rest of the team. I mean, you could see the emotion in the rest of the team as well, how much it meant to everybody. It's just fantastic. Brilliant.” 

The coach’s pride is entirely understandable. The British team have long been fighting the odds, with Treacy defiantly leading the way. Funding cuts have left Treacy and teammates having to make huge sacrifices just to compete, yet somehow the 25-year-old has made his way methodically to the top. 

“It's always in the back of my mind that we're going against teams that have much bigger budgets,” Treacy said. “A lot of the time I do come here and I do think, ‘Can I compete with these guys?’ And each year I sort of have to convince myself that I can.” 

He certainly can. Back at the 2024 ISU European Championships, Treacy snatched a superb 1000m silver. Then, later the same year, the Birmingham native powered his way to a first ISU World Tour medal, finishing third in the 1000m in Beijing in December 2024. That result silenced a lot of the internal doubts and since then Treacy has taken regular steps forward. 

The biggest undoubtedly came in the recent Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. Despite being Britain’s only representative, Treacy powered his way to the 1500m final, with only an agonising fall stopping his remarkable run. 

But, as he has become accustomed to, Treacy got up and put himself in another 1500m final, this time on the opening day of the 2026 ISU CNSG World Championships. In a drama-filled race, Treacy came so close to that elusive medal before fading to finish fifth. 

All great achievements, but still not the medal he wanted. 

“We said yesterday that I had made an A final in World Tour #4 (in Dordrecht in November last year), an A final at the Euros (in January this year), an A final at the Games but hadn’t managed a medal so having an A final yesterday and not medalling, it was sort of like if you throw enough stuff at the wall at some point something will stick,” Treacy said. 

And stick it finally did. 

Facing a 1000m field stacked with world and Olympic champions, Treacy kept his nerve and landed the biggest prize of his career. 

“When you talk about athlete models or role models in sport, I don’t think you could find anyone better,” Shoebridge said. “Credit to the determination, the motivation, the perseverance. We’ve been knocking at the door quite a few times in the last couple of years and to come away with a medal at a World Championships is absolutely fantastic.” 

The first world medal for a male British skater since Nicky Gooch took 1500m silver in 1996 – and the first for either gender since Elise Christie’s final medal in 2017 – might well be enough to persuade Treacy to continue his career through to the next Olympic Games. 

“Hopefully, the funding result goes our way as I think it will make it going easier as I get older, but I definitely think this medal would be something pushing me in the way of another four years,” Treacy said with a grin. 

“Hopefully the results from the Games and from this weekend will hopefully bring some more money for us back home and hopefully have a bigger team and more guys competing individually.”