It’s fair to say the competition didn’t go the way GB would have imagined, with Clancy – the most successful team pursuit rider of all time – forced to retire with a back injury after Monday’s qualifying.

This saw the reserve, Charlie Tanfield of Great Ayton teaming up with Oliver Wood, Ethan Hayter and Ethan Vernon of Wakefield.

They were well beaten by Denmark in their first-lap run, with Wood the first to walk away before Tanfield was abandoned as a clearly rusty team struggled.

The race ended when the Danes caught, but did not see, Tanfield and slammed him in the back, leading to questions about whether they could be disqualified.

They were not and entered the gold medal race, in which they were edged out by Italy, while GB overtook Switzerland in the race for seventh place.

And Clancy, who is among the winning teams in Beijing, London and Rio, was honest in his assessment that even without the dropout and crashes, GB couldn’t have lived with the top two, who both came under. the world record in the end.

When asked if GB could have won gold, he replied, “Honestly, no. Not this time. We might have been in the medals but honestly I don’t think we would have been good enough to do it, that’s the truth and that’s great.

“If we’re going to move forward and do something about it, we have to start with a willingness to accept that there are other teams doing what we’re doing better than us right now.

“It’s not for lack of commitment, from the riders or the staff. We must have the will to accept that there are people who do better. The second thing we need to do is look at the key facts and data and act on it and do it quickly because Paris is not that far away. ”

Elsewhere on Wednesday, Leeds’ Katy Marchant overcame an early hiccup to reserve her place in the Women’s Keirin quarter-final.

A bronze medalist in the individual sprint in Rio, Marchant won her race before being relegated for falling too early in the sprint lane.

That meant she would have to go through the draft, but she did it brilliantly and was optimistic the extra run would serve her well after so few opportunities to work on her racing craft over the past 18 months.

She said: “I think tactically the race was really good. I just had a mishap in turn three (in the heat) but it’s another practice opportunity and I’d rather learn this lesson in the first round than in the semi-final or final tomorrow.

“When we’ve missed so many opportunities over the past 18 months to get back into shape a little bit… my legs feel great so I’m confident. ”

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