Excitement is building for Joanna Rowsell Shand following the start of an Olympic year although she insists her main priority will be on her and her British teammates rather than what her rivals are up to.
Rowsell Shand has already built up an impressive CV with team pursuit gold coming at London 2012 while she has also amazed five World Championship titles and a Commonwealth Games gold medal.
She will be looking to add to that in August of this year when Rio hosts the first ever Olympic Games to take place in South America.
Before then, however, is the matter of qualification with the third and final round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup taking place in Hong Kong this weekend.
Qualification points will be on offer for the cyclists and Rowsell Shand admits competing in an Olympic year only serves to increase the anticipation of what is to come this summer.
“I think for me when I see it say 2016 on the calendar it has become a lot more real. Back in August we had a big year-to-go drive and that was a real point to knuckle down after I’d got married in July,” Rowsell Shand told British Cycling.
“But now 2016 has arrived it feels like it is actually the year of an Olympics, rather than saying next year, it’s this year.
“The clock is ticking but I quite like the added pressure, especially as I’ve been to previous Olympics and big Championships.
“It’s difficult to say whether we will be winning a medal and what colour that medal could be because we can do is control what we do, but what other teams do is out of our hands.
“In terms of my selection all I can do is focus on myself but I know I’m in form and my training is paying off; in my point of view I just want the whole team to be on their best form because we want to be the best.”
Rowsell Shand, along with Laura Trott, Ciara Horne and Elinor Barker, missed round two of the World Cup in New Zealand to focus on a training block.
But they will be back in action this weekend, and with the World Championships in London on the horizon in March, she admits it’s more about peaking at the right times this year.
“We are not really aiming to compete in Hong Kong its more about the World Championships and obviously the Olympics,” she added.
“We have trained hard throughout December and over Christmas, with only had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, so we really are delighted to see that paying off now and seeing personal bests for individuals.”