by Our Sports Desk

Joanna Rowsell said yesterday that the first team pursuit loss for Great Britain’s women in more than four years can only be good for their ambitions of gold at the Rio Olympics.

Prior to Australia’s win in Paris in February, Britain had won six of seven team pursuit world titles on offer in the discipline, which in 2014 was contested with four riders over four kilometres for the first time.

Rowsell combined with Laura Trott and Dani King to win Olympic gold at London 2012, during Britain’s period of dominance, which saw world and European titles secured.

The only previous world title Britain had missed out on was in 2010, when Australia won and Britain had to settle for silver — a disappointment Rowsell believes stood the squad in good stead for London 2012.

The situation has repeated itself as Rio approaches but Rowsell is optimistic.

She said: “Back then I would say it was the best thing that could’ve happened to us.

“At that stage we’d been unbeaten for the previous two years, it had just been announced that the team pursuit was going to be in the London Olympics. For us to get beaten was a really big wake-up call.

“This year it wasn’t so much of a wake-up call. We all knew how good the Aussies were.

“I don’t think any of us went into those World Championships complacent or thinking we were going to walk away with it at all.

“But I think other people can get quite complacent and I think often staff, media, members of the public can often hang that medal around our necks and say: ‘Oh, that’s a guaranteed gold medal in women’s team pursuit.’

“But it’s not at all. We work really, really hard and we’ve had some really narrow victories over the years.”

Rowsell is content for Britain to no longer be the target for the rest of the world and considered overwhelming favourites for Olympic gold.

The 26-year-old four-time team pursuit world champion added: “Obviously it was a disappointing defeat in Paris but at the same time we knew the Aussies were coming.

“It’s a nice position to be in, to be chasing for a change, to have a team ahead of us to chase, a target time to go for, rather than us keep leading the way and keep trying to push the boundaries.

“Someone else has done that now so there’s something very clear to aim for and I really like being in this position.
“Hopefully it will make it even more of a better victory if we do win (in Rio).”