Published: 15 December 2011
Report: Scott Hobro

Great Britain’s Andy Tennant is ready to prove he is worthy of a place in the team pursuit in what he described as the ‘real start’ to next year’s Olympic Games.

Tennant (far right) - "You always have to be ready to step up."

Tennant, 24, was part of the winning team in the final of the European Track Championships in October alongside Steven Burke, Ed Clancy and Peter Kennaugh and represents one of seven hopefuls for the four places in London.

But the former world junior pursuit champion is aware he will need to be in top form if he is to be on start line in the London Velodrome next summer and despite winning in Apeldoorn, believes it is only a sign of things to come.

“We’ve just started back, there are a few of us who had a break after the European Track Championships. We have just had a four week boot camp in Manchester on the track and road and are now in Mallorca for quite a lot of aerobic and conditioning. This is the real start.

“It’s going well, we are all gelling as a team and getting on well so it’s a good foundation to move forward. We all want to be in that team but at the end of the day it’s going to be the four fastest riders that are picked at that so you just get on and do your own job and try to be the best team player you can and hopefully you’ll succeed.

“The London World Cup is definitely going to be the first big one, things can obviously change, anything can happen, you always have to be ready to step up. Hopefully I can get myself into good form and be one of the strongest members and make that team in my own right as well as being reliable to all the selection committee and proving you can do it.

“[At the European Track Championships] I rode the final but obviously you want to ride both rounds but you’ve got to look at that as a marker. I know what went wrong in the build up to that phase and it’s making sure that doesn’t happen again and that we get everything right.”

The Rapha Condor Sharp rider has moulded himself into a specialist in the team pursuit, something that perhaps seemed destined after his success in the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships in 2005, although he revealed that at the time was uncertain over his future in cycling.

“At that stage it was all a bit of a whirlwind that year and it was all about getting selected for the European Championships. Then I won the worlds - it all came upon me really quick and I wasn’t expecting any of it. At the time I wasn’t expecting to be cycling at all, I was planning on going to university, I just took it as it came. I joined the academy and discovered the path that I wanted to be more of a track rider and that the road wasn’t suiting me out there.”