Wednesday 2 March 2016 09:50, UK
Shane Sutton, the head of British Cycling, expects Mark Cavendish to abandon his bid for an Olympic medal if he fails to finish in the top three in the omnium at next week’s UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London.
Cavendish has never won an Olympic medal but wants to fill the void in Rio as part of an ambitious project for 2016 that also includes winning stages of the Tour de France in July and a second world road race title in October.
He has spent much of the winter at the Manchester Velodrome training for the six-race omnium, but he could only finish fourth in his top-level debut in the event at January's UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Hong Kong.
Sutton wants to see improvement at the World Championships, which take place from March 2-6, and will talk with Cavendish about withdrawing from contention for Rio if he can't deliver.
He said: "I would like to think he is going to go very close to a top three. He would be expecting that himself, otherwise he would rule himself out.
"If he can't run top three in the worlds, I would say that Cav would put his hand up, go back and continue his dream via the Tour, trying to get the jersey and win the stages in the Tour and the road worlds.
"Top three is not being brutal; it's Cav being Cav. His bar is a certain level and he won't want to not be able to jump the bar. He will need to know that he can go there and get the medal."
Cavendish confirmed that the World Championships will be make or break for his Olympic ambitions.
He said: "I wouldn't be doing the worlds if I couldn't a result there, and if I can't get a result at the worlds then I'm not going to be doing the Olympics."
A further complicating factor for Cavendish is that if he does ride the omnium in Rio, he will automatically become the fifth and final member of Britain's pursuit team, which is aiming to win the gold medal in world-record time.
Team pursuiting is a full-time job - described by Sir Bradley Wiggins as "brutal" - but Cavendish has commitments to his road team, Dimension Data, whose sponsors and management want him riding and winning stages at the Tour de France.
Heiko Salzwedel, who coaches Britain's men's pursuit team, said Cavendish is not currently capable of riding a team pursuit in world-record time and would have to sacrifice road racing in order to get up to speed.
The German said: "At the moment, it is a long way to go because we didn't have the time to work on the team pursuit. Mark is required to spend considerable time here in Manchester and he needs to get his priorities right.
"It's a very difficult task what he is aiming for. He wants to do everything. He wants to win Qatar [the road World Championships], he wants to win stages of the Tour de France, he wants to win gold at the Olympic Games, and he wants to have a good spring season.
"We had several discussions about this. Mark knows what he is doing. I'm not talking to a little kid here. He knows it is a very difficult task and he knows that he has to prioritise. We will continue talking on this after the World Championships."
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