Ross Edgar will get his chance to nail down an Olympic team sprint spot on the track later this month.
London event could hold key
Sir Chris Hoy's hopes of matching his triple Olympic gold medal haul from Beijing four years ago could rest on the shoulders of fellow Scot Ross Edgar, according to Great Britain Cycling coach Iain Dyer.
Hoy claimed gold in the keirin, sprint and team sprint in the 2008 Games, but the retirement of Jamie Staff in 2010 - who was the part of the three-man sprint team alongside Hoy and Jason Kenny - has left a difficult gap to fill.
Staff rode in the lead-off position, or man one, and Dyer admitted finding the right replacement for the world-beating three-man combination has proved tricky, but believes Edgar could be the man to fill the role.
The GB team are preparing for the final round of the 2011/12 UCI Track Cycling World Cup, which is doubling as an Olympic test event and will be held at the London 2012 velodrome next month.
Sprint options
Dyer is tasked with perfecting the team-sprint line-up before the Olympic Games, and has experimented with several options, with Kenny, Hoy and Matt Crampton selected for the 2011 European Championships in October and Edgar, Kenny and Jason Queally racing in the Kazakhstan leg of the UCI Track World Cup.
However, he believes 29-year-old Edgar could be key to securing gold in the team sprint at the London Games in August.
"Jamie Staff was such a very strong man one and when paired with Jason Kenny in man two and Chris Hoy in man three," Dyer told British Cycling's
official website.
"We had a team where we could honestly say each athlete was the very best in the world in that position and that's a pretty rare occurrence for any team or relay style event.
"It's our plan to roll Ross out at man one, Jason [Kenny] at man two and Chris at man three at London World Cup and see what that gives us.
"Ross has been dealing with that challenge in the last year or two and I believe at this point has shown really good development and progression in that position."
Experience
Edgar has already tasted success at an Olympic Games when he won a silver in the keirin four years ago after he went head-to-head with Hoy in the all-British final, and he has also competed alongside the four-time Olympic champion for Scotland in two Commonwealth Games.
However, while Edgar is in Dyer's plan to replicate the team sprint success of Beijing, the London leg of the World Cup might come too soon to test the potential Olympic three-man line-up.
"Unfortunately in the last few weeks Ross has been battling against an injury," Dyer said. "We hope that he'll be on form for London but he might just come up a little short on time to rehabilitate the injury and progress his fitness once again."
