Doull heartened despite defeat in Cali

The team failed to qualify for the medal finals at the recent World Cup meeting in Cali, despite winning gold at last month's European Track Championships.

But it was the performance in the ride-off for fifth place that left 22-year-old Doull encouraged, with Great Britain showing glimpses of world-record pace in beating Germany.

The World Championships loom in March and the bar must be raised should they hope to match the world record the Great Britain team set, 3:51.659minutes, at London 2012.

And Doull believes he and his teammates, who were Sir Bradley Wiggins, Andy Tennant and Steven Burke in Cali, have proved they have the ability to make similar waves in Rio next year.

"We're aiming to break the world record at next summer's Olympics and the World Cup proved to us that we have it in us to do that, even nine months out from the Games," he told skysports.com.

"There's no escaping it: finishing fifth was a disappointment. However, if you look closely at our performances and results, it's easy to see where we went wrong and realise that, despite the outcome, we were possibly the fastest team there.

"In the qualifying round we decided to take it steady and that backfired a bit. Lesson learnt. Then in the first round, we went out really hard and were flying, but we weren't able to keep up that pace and cracked in the last couple of laps. Again, lesson learnt.

"That left us in the race for fifth place and, this time, we got it absolutely spot on." © Sportsbeat 2015