Mark Cavendish, Jason Kenny and other UCI Track Cycling World Championships talking points

Great Britain topped the medals table the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London last week with five golds, one silver and three bronzes.

Laura Trott, Jason Kenny, Jon Dibben and the two-man Madison team of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish were the big winners, but there were also disappointments over the five days of the competition.

Here, we pick through the main talking points…

Can Cavendish win an Olympic medal in the omnium?

Mark Cavendish said that if he couldn't win a medal at the World Championships then he won't be able to win one at the Olympics Games, so the fact he finished sixth and 30 points off the podium doesn't bode well.

There was a suggestion that he may drop out of contention for selection for Rio as a result, but quite the opposite, he still believes he can finish in the top three and intends to continue on with the project.

Cavendish's weak links in the omnium are the time events, particularly the 4km individual pursuit, which he admitted he had ridden "like a junior" in London, and the 1km time trial. He finished 13th and 12th and will need to improve considerably in Rio, but that won't be easy, given his commitments on the road between now and August.

On the positive side, Cavendish was ironically hampered in the concluding points race by London's home crowd, who cheered wildly every time he hit the front of the bunch. He was the most conspicuous rider on the track and that gave him virtually no chance of lapping the field and taking the resulting 20 points on offer. In Rio, Cavendish will be as anonymous as everyone else and his chances of making strides up the standings far greater for it.

So there is hope for Cavendish, but he still remains an outsider. And that's presuming he gets selected.

Can the pursuit teams win Olympic gold?

This is a tough one to predict right now, simply because so many teams are in with a realistic chance of winning gold in both the men's and women's events.

For the men, it's definitely possible. They went into the World Championships with talisman Ed Clancy still recovering from back surgery only three months earlier but the team nevertheless reached the final and only missed out on gold when Clancy - still short of peak fitness - faded in the final two laps.

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With Clancy back to 100 per cent, Sir Bradley Wiggins still the Rolls-Royce he always has been, and both Owain Doull and Jon Dibben looking stronger by the day, Britain may end up being the team to beat in Rio.

For the women, the signs aren't quite as encouraging. They rode their two best pursuits ever last week but could only take bronze. And even more worryingly, their new national record was one second shy of the 4min 15sec set by eventual winners United States in the semi-finals and three seconds adrift of Australia's world record. Add Canada into the equation and there are a lot of obstacles to overcome.

There are, however, reasons for optimism. The powerful Katie Archibald missed the worlds through injury and will be back for Rio, while Britain's time in the bronze-medal final in London was faster than the United States' in the gold-medal final.

Is Jason Kenny out of hibernation?

Jason Kenny has become notorious for peaking for the Olympics and then going pretty much AWOL in the years in between, so much so that British Cycling technical director Shane Sutton described the 27-year-old as a bear in hibernation prior to the World Championships.

The notion is backed up by the fact that Kenny has won the same number of gold medals at the Olympics as he has at the annual worlds: three at each.

However, his domination of the men's sprint in London last week suggested the bear has woken and is back on the move. He was so impressive on the way to winning gold that Sir Chris Hoy declared Kenny to be in the best form he had seen from him since London 2012. Rio now can't come soon enough.

Is there any way back for the women's sprinters?

The biggest disappointment of Britain's World Championships was the failure of Jess Varnish and Katy Marchant to secure qualification for the Olympics in the team sprint, which prompted the pair to angrily and emotionally criticise their coaches.

The knock-on effect was that Britain also only gets one place in the keirin in Rio instead of two, and there was further reason to be glum when both Varnish and Marchant were knocked out of the individual sprint in the early rounds.

Neither were able to compete with the likes of Anna Meares, Kristina Vogel and Chinese pair Tianshi Zhong and Lin Junhong, and there was little to suggest they will fare any better in Rio.

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However, Becky James offered welcome hope by putting two years of injury behind her to win bronze in the keirin. She is consequently almost certain to take Britain's place in the event in Rio and, given that she is still working her way back to her very best, the chances of another medal are good.

Are Britain back and can they dominate in Rio?

Yes and no. When you consider that at the 2015 World Championships they managed only three silver medals (both team pursuits and women's omnium), then a return of five golds, one silver and three bronzes last week was a massive stride forward.

However, three of the golds (Wiggins and Cavendish's in the Madison, Laura Trott's in the scratch race and Dibben's in the points race) and one of the bronzes (Andy Tennant's in the individual pursuit) were in non-Olympic events.

That means that if the World Championships had been the Olympics, Britain would have won two golds, one silver and two bronzes, which is a huge fall from the seven golds they won at each of Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

Granted, there's room for upgrades to gold in both the men's and women's team pursuit in Rio, and other events as well, but even four or five golds would not constitute domination.

Britain look on course for a successful 2016 Olympics, but don't bank on them being as all-conquering as they were in the past two Games.

Can Britain dominate on the track in Rio? Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below, or for app users, by tweeting @SkyCycling.