Dowsett demands team deliver Cavendish gold

World champion Cavendish has the opportunity to be Britain’s first gold medal winner of the London Olympics on 28 July – less than a week after the conclusion of a Tour de France which he and Team Sky colleague Bradley Wiggins hope to dominate.

Wiggins, who is aiming to be the first Briton on the Tour podium, is also poised to line up in the Olympic time-trial on 1 August, leading to suggestions he might not complete the 250-kilometre road race four days previously.

However, Dowsett, who hopes to be the second Briton in the Hampton Court race against the clock, insists the priority must be helping Cavendish cross the line on The Mall first following nine ascents of Box Hill in Surrey.

“We have to be totally selfless in our mission to win this medal,” British time-trial champion Dowsett, also of Team Sky said. “Everyone wants Cav to come away with the gold medal because, although it will be him standing on the podium, we will all feel we’ve been part of that gold medal ride.”

Britain have qualified the maximum number of five riders for the Olympic road race. However, two of those will also be involved in the time-trial.

After the Tour, which finishes in Paris on July 22, Wiggins has said his priority will be the 44km individual event.

Wiggins was an integral figure as Cavendish became just the second British male to win the world road title in Copenhagen last September and won a silver medal in the time-trial in Denmark, but the road race came second.

Dowset won a Commonwealth Games silver medal in the time-trial after the Delhi road race and is a medal contender in the Olympic time-trial in his own right, if selected. And he hopes Wiggins will do whatever it takes for Cavendish to succeed before focusing on his own bid for success.

Dowsett added: “We’ll all have our individual jobs. Each one of the four workers will have their own finish line.

“It might be the finish line, it might be 200 metres before the finish line or it might be still with 50 miles to go. Hopefully, everyone will take the same attitude into the race that it is for Cavendish to win at all costs.

“Bradley did such a good job at the end of the World Road Race Championships last year that he might be persuaded to finish.”

Dowsett, who is recovering from a broken elbow sustained last month, has been training with Cavendish since he moved to Essex. “He lives in another world,” added Dowsett. “I learn a lot from him.”

The 23-year-old from Maldon was speaking at The Salvation Army’s Hadleigh Training Centre for vulnerable adults in Essex at an event to mark 100 days to go to the Olympic Games.

Hadleigh Farm is to host the Olympic mountain bike competition on 11 and 12 August.

Bradley Craddock, principal of The Salvation Army’s Hadleigh Training Centre, said: “Sport is a fantastic way of engaging people. All of the trainees here that participated were very happy and enthusiastic.”