Cavendish has timed his pursuit for Olympic gold too late

So says Bradley Wiggins, the Briton who is favourite to win gold in the pursuit. And that is not a psychological put-down of a potential rival but the genuine opinion of a man who knows more about the pursuit than any rider competing in Beijing.

Wiggins is the defending Olympic champion and has held the world title for the past two years. He has nothing against British cycling’s new hero. Indeed, Cavendish will be his partner in the madison — a spectacular two-man relay event — in Beijing.

Tour de force: Cavendish celebrates one of his four stage wins

Wiggins said: ‘Makes no difference to me whether the guy on the other side of the track in the pursuit is British or not. I’m not aware of who it is. But Cav won’t get to the final, no way.

‘He will basically be riding it as a hit-out, so he has a warm-up for the madison. If he scrapes a bronze medal ride it would be fantastic for him. I don’t think he has had the preparation time and it does need preparation.

‘For me, it’s been a 12-month process and that is a lot of small steps he won’t have taken.’

Wiggins believes Cavendish pulled out of the Tour at the right moment, giving himself four weeks of recovery time.

‘One of the reasons I didn’t do the Tour this year is that I didn’t want to compromise, in any way, the amount of time and effort I needed to put into the track. I didn’t want to go into the Tour under-prepared,’ added Wiggins.

‘The Tour is ideal preparation if it is far enough out — like the Giro d’Italia was 11 weeks before the Olympics. The Tour was too late for me. It was different for Cav. He needed it for the madison, which is a very different event to pursuit.’

Team-mate and competitor: Wiggins could be up against Cavendish as well as partnering him in the Madison

Cavendish is an endurance rider with a phenomenal capacity to sprint at the end of long rides. So stage racing like the Tour de France is perfect for him on the road, but he is equally at home on the track in the madison, a race over 60km contested by two-man teams who take turns riding and resting in relays.

Named after the arena in New York where it was first contested, the team score points in sprints every five kilometres. In the British duo, Wiggins is the work-horse doing more of the riding before ‘handslinging’ his team-mate into a dash when the klaxon sounds for a sprint.

Cavendish has been resting at his home on the Isle of Man since he pulled out of the Tour after his fourth stage win.

One day this week he will do a pursuit trial at the velodrome in Manchester under the watchful eyes of his coach Rod Ellingworth with the aim of a time under 4min 20sec. If he makes it, the choice for Britain’s second rider will be between the Manxman and
Welshman Geraint Thomas.

Thomas clocked 4:17 in a recent trial, a time that could win an Olympic medal. But the individual pursuit is the day before qualifying for the team pursuit, another of Britain’s gold medal targets in which Thomas will play a key part. Riding a potential three-round in the individual could take the edge off him for the team event.

This British team is not interested in silvers. It is going for golds, as many as the nine it won at the world track championships if you count their chances in road and BMX. Wiggins alone is bidding to beat the gold, silver and bronze tally he won in Athens with three golds.

‘I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think I could win gold in each one. For me the Olympics is three gold medals from seven races over five days,’ he said.

Scottish sprinter Chris Hoy is also targeting three golds — in sprint, keirin and team sprint. Victoria Pendleton and Rebecca Romero will be unhappy with anything less than gold. Shanaze Reade is the shortest-odds favourite in the sport at BMX.

So it is possible to see nine golds without counting the chance of a win in the road race by Nicole Cooke, twice winner of the women’s Tour de France.

Britain's Beijing bike brigade

TRACK — Men’s Individual Pursuit: Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas or
Mark Cavendish.
Men’s Team Pursuit: Steven Burke, Edward Clancy, Paul Manning, Thomas, Wiggins.
Madison: Cavendish, Wiggins.
Men’s Team Sprint: Ross Edgar, Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny, Jamie Staff.
Men’s Keirin: Edgar, Hoy.
Men’s Sprint: Kenny, Hoy.
Men’s Points Race: Chris Newton.
Women’s Sprint: Victoria Pendleton.
Women’s Individual Pursuit: Wendy Houvenaghel, Rebecca Romero.
Women’s Points Race: Romero.
ROAD — Men’s Road Race: Jonny Bellis, Steve Cummings, Roger Hammond, Ben Swift.
Men’s Time Trial: Cummings.
Women’s Road Race: Nicole Cooke, Sharon Laws, Emma Pooley.
BMX — Men’s: Liam Phillips. Women’s: Shanaze Reade.
MOUNTAIN BIKE — Men’s: Oli Beckingsale, Liam Killeen.