Shane Sutton - Olympic points are GB's target at next week's London Track World Cup

Olympic qualification points will be more important for Great Britain’s riders than winning races at the Track World Cup in London next week, says British Cycling’s Shane Sutton.

The Australian, formerly number two to Sir Dave Brailsford, has his sights set firmly on Rio 2016, but admitted to the Observer’s William Fotheringham that with the next Olympics more than a year and a half away, expectations need to be tempered.

Sutton took over from Brailsford earlier this year when the latter, who masterminded Team GB’s success at Beijing in 2008 and in London four years later decided to focus full-time on his role as team principal at Sky.

He picked up a Great Britain team that is in transition, with notable departures since the heady summer of 2012 including Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton, as well as several key members of support staff besides Brailsford.

Shortly before Sutton took over the reins, Great Britain’s men came away from this year’s World Championships at Cali in Colombia without a single medal – their worst performance in 15 years.

He admitted that at this stage in the Olympic cycle, home fans shouldn’t expect a dominant performance next weekend at the velodrome where Team GB took most of the gold medals on offer two years ago.

“The riders will want success in front of their home crowd but ultimately it’s about Olympic qualification, so it’s about securing points and if wins come on the back of that then fantastic,” he explained.

“Everyone is going to be living off what happened in London and the public will expect, but that’s part and parcel of elite sport.

“We were a force in London, and we want to be a force in Rio, but this is part of the pathway to get there. A lot of people are in heavy work still and this isn’t something we can taper for, given we want to go and have a successful Worlds.

“We can’t be at our optimum. There’s a lot of people doubting us after what happened in Colombia, but we can see a trend and we will be competitive across the board.”

He believes that the disappointing performance by Great Britain’s men in Cali was in part due to the comedown from that stellar performance at the Olympics.

“It was tall building [syndrome],” he said. “They had to get themselves so high for London that when it finished they crashed and burned because they’d given everything. It’s taken a while to bounce back from that.

“We sat down and looked at ourselves and re-addressed our philosophy. I said we needed to freshen up and we’ve done that. I’ve seen changes.

“I wouldn’t say the riders weren’t committed but after the success in London there were a lot of distractions. The riders have a certain amount of earning potential and limited time to capitalise on that.

“We always said the best time for that was the two years after the Games and then they need to start on the road to Rio.”

Besides looking to bring through younger riders to fill the void left by Pendleton and Hoy, Sutton also has to deal with the ambitions of riders such as Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish, both of whom are eyeing Olympic gold in Rio.

For Wiggins, riding the team pursuit with an eye to clinching a fifth Olympic gold would set the seal on what has already been a stellar career on the road and the track.

Cavendish, frustrated in his attempts to win an Olympic medal in the Madison in Beijing and the road race in London, has said he may consider riding the Omnium in Rio.

“The ball is in their court,” Sutton maintained. “When you see the way Cav has been whizzing round Ghent and Zurich I’m sure it has whetted his appetite. All he needs to know is that GB is there for him.”