Yorkshire duo Charlie Tanfield and Ollie Wood eager to make up for Tokyo pain with Paris glory

Tanfield describes it as “terrible” after coming in for the injured and suddenly retired Yorkshire legend Ed Clancy to drop off the back of the team pursuit quartet and be crashed into by the Danish riders who had caught him.

Wood’s recollection is a little more modest - “not the best” - but how ever it is badged up, after three Olympic cycles in which Great Britain had won gold in the team pursuit, a seventh-place finish was a dramatic fall from grace.

Ever since that journey home both Tanfield and Wood have resolved to set the record straight, and on Monday the opportunity to do so was confirmed when they were named in the five-man endurance squad for this summer’s Paris Olympics alongside Ethan Hayter, Ethan Vernon and Dan Bigham.

Tanfield, 27, said: “Tokyo was terrible for me, but I’m looking forward to this time around. I was the reserve and obviously the way it went wasn’t how I wanted it to go, but you learn from these experiences and I’ve been determined to ensure I’m not in the same spot this time around, that this time I’m as well-prepared as possible to put in a good performance, which I’m sure I will.”

Taking charge of his own preparation, which includes time divided between the Great Britain track programme in Manchester and road cycling team Saint-Piran, was one of Tanfield’s biggest lessons post-Tokyo.

“There are slight changes I’ve made, I’ve been trying to bring things a lot more into my own control and not having it on the other foot, making sure that going into the Games I’ve given it absolutely everything in the lead up to ensure that I didn’t leave anything on the table,” he said. “I’ve proven to myself already that I’m in a good place and that I’m worthy of a spot.”

Unlike in past cycles when Great Britain flew under the radar at the majority of world and European championships, only to rock up at an Olympics and blow the field away, this current squad goes into Paris as reigning European champions and gold medallists from the 2022 worlds which were held at the same velodrome.

“Historically we don’t win many competitions in between the Olympics, going back to the 2012 boys,” Wood, 28, told The Yorkshire Post.

“But then in my time we didn’t do well in Tokyo either - so hopefully we can change that around by doing well at them all.

“People say you get complacent if you’re winning but it makes me even hungrier if we are winning and I can say the same for all the other lads.”

Of his own Tokyo memories, and what he took from it, Wood added: “It wasn’t the best, but that’s elite sport.

“It just made me want it more, because you’ve been there, you’ve got as close to success as you can possibly get without tasting that success.

“I’m not one to dwell on things or kick the toys out of the pram when performances don’t go well, so I just moved on from it straight away and looked at what the next target was.

“That’s what you’re so accustomed to doing - put your medal in your bag, get your flight home, find your medal a week later, put it in a drawer, move onto the next. That’s the cycle until the Olympics when it’s like: this is what everything has been working towards.”

Wood is also hoping to ride the two-man madison with Hayter in Paris, an event they were silver medallists in at the 2022 world championships at the same Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome as the Olympics will be staged.

“It holds good memories,” said Wood. “You tend to favour a faster track in the team pursuit because you’re constantly at a high speed and you don’t want tight bankings. Nice long bankings which Paris has, favours riding team pursuit.

“I feel Paris was quite easy to ride. You’ve just got to believe in yourself, we all have to. It will be really close at the Games, but I don’t think it’s out of our reach to get a medal or even a gold medal.”

And both men insist Britain’s glorious history in the team pursuit - Clancy being involved in three successive gold-medal winning teams prior to the Tokyo collapse - is not a burden as they try to spark a new era of dominance.

“It doesn’t weigh on us,” said Tanfield. “You’ve seen what we’ve managed to do this year, it’s where we should be and what we should be aiming for. If we don’t aim for something that high then we’re not doing justice to ourselves.

“There’s a reason we’ve got this history, that’s because British Cycling have put so much care into it and allow us to prepare so well.

“We’ve got to go and justify that.”