British coach pleased with progress despite no gold

Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France) (AFP) - British Cycling head coach Iain Dyer insisted he was pleased with the team's progress despite failing to win a gold medal at the world championships for the first time in 14 years.

Britain came away from Paris with three silver medals and their lowest finish in the medals table since failing to win any at all in 1998.

And this just two years since topping the medals table and three years since they managed 13 in total, including six gold.

It's also just two-and-a-half years since Britain won seven of the 10 gold medals on offer at the London Olympics.

Yet Dyer is quietly confident ahead of Rio, despite the poor results.

"Realistically, our assessment rather than going back historically to what we might have done 10 years ago or beyond that, I'm more interested to look at the perspective of how far we've come in the last year," he said.

"The men's team pursuit squad didn't have a good championship in Cali last year so we really had a mission to turn those guys around."

Having finished eighth in Cali, Britain's four-man squad took the silver medal behind New Zealand in France.

"The performance director's been instigating a lot of changes in the way the team operates and the coaching strategy, and I think now we're beginning to see the green shoots of progress in that respect," added Dyer.

"While on face value the performances don't look earth-shattering, I think below that there's a good deal of progress being made in a key area, and (it's) right to highlight the Olympic disciplines in that respect.

"I'm actually quite pleased to see the turnaround in the men's pursuit team, they've come a long way in a very short space of time."

- Far behind Australia -

All three of Britain's silver medals in Paris came in Olympic events -- there are 10 track events at the Games compared to 19 at the worlds.

But what could not be ignored was how far behind perennial rivals Australia the Brits were.

The Aussies finished with four gold medals and their women's pursuit squad set a new world record, gaining a rare victory over Britain, who had won six of the previous seven world titles and also took the Olympic crown.

"Australia are always going to be there or there abouts and you can see from the performances in their national championships only a few weeks ago how strong they were, and in particular the women's team pursuit," said Dyer.

"Clearly they were going to come here and have a very good event.

"The most important thing is that we remain focussed on what we do in that respect, and the times we've done, even in drawing a comparison to our performance at the London Olympics, I think we can be pleased with those times and also there's capacity for more to come."

Dyer even insisted that Jason Kenny, a three-time Olympic and twice world champion, was on course to perform well in Rio, despite suffering a disaster in Paris.

Kenny was knocked out in the first round of both the individual sprint and the keirin, while the British team sprint squad could manage only eighth.

But Dyer said it had not been a disappointment.

"In reality quite the opposite, we've been working a lot on Jason's qualifying speed and his basic strength and muscle mass.

"In that respect he's had a good year. He qualified very strongly here and we were very pleased with that."

When it comes to the Olympics, Dyer said there are no targets.

"If we go to Rio and we're better than ever and the best we can be, that's job done.

"If someone out there is even further ahead, you can't legislate for that."