Emma Pooley sets sights on Olympic time trial gold

Olympic silver medallist Emma Pooley is poised to come out of retirement to compete for Great Britain at next year’s Rio Games.

The 33-year-old, who took time trial silver at Beijing 2008 and gold at the 2010 world championships in Melbourne, quit professional cycling last year to concentrate on long-distance triathlon and duathlon. But on Wednesday she confirmed that, if selected, she intended to go for time-trial gold at Rio and said that she was “really excited” about the hilly 29.8-kilometre course in Rio, which on ­paper appears tailor-made for her.

Pooley admitted that the traditional timing of the Olympic time trial three days after the road race was far from ideal in terms of knowing how hard to push in the road race, in which she could be a major asset for Lizzie Armitstead or even a possible winner herself depending on how things panned out.

“It’s not the way you would choose to have it,” she told The Telegraph. “There is a reason the time trial is ahead of the road race at every world championships. The Olympics is strange in that way. But I managed it in Beijing. I rode very hard in support of Nicole Cooke in the road race and then got silver three [in the TT] days later. So they are not mutually exclusive but you do have to weigh up the performances in each. But I might not even be in the ballpark for [TT] selection so let’s wait and see.”

Injuries aside, it is difficult to see how Pooley would not be selected. Her pedigree against the clock, particularly on hilly courses such as the one in Brazil next summer, is head and shoulders above any other British rider. And she is clearly as fit as ever, having scored some notable successes since switching to triathlon and endurance events.

British Cycling has certainly worked hard to persuade her to return, with rumours that they were making representations stretching as far back as late August.

“They have been quite encouraging about trying for it because they have a load of brilliant scientists and analysts and coaches on the case,” she said. “And that is really encouraging because they wouldn’t be supporting me unless they felt I had a realistic medal possibility because they don’t want to take also-rans to the Olympics.

“They sent me some course information a few months ago and I started to think about it then. But it takes more than just sticking your hand up. There are BOA and UCI rules and selection criteria.”

She added: “The one thing that I did which was kind of preparatory, before even seriously considering [a comeback], was I did a time trial in France back in October. Because you need at least 10 UCI points to go. It was a bit last minute but I got the points and that was that box ticked. So now it’s about meeting the selection criteria.

“But it’s all really exciting, and it also feels quite refreshing, partly because I’ve been away for a while, but also because there is the possibility of doing really well rather than simply ‘I’m a professional so I have to try to go for the Olympics’. London was obviously great and I had to go for it but I didn’t really have a hope of doing well there. This is totally different. It’s a race I’m really excited about.”

Pooley said she did not know who might challenge her for Britain’s TT spot, or who her rivals might be if she did win selection. “There just aren’t enough TTs out there to see how people are performing. [The two-time Olympic champion Kristin] Armstrong is always one to watch out for. But I’ll be honest, I haven’t really been following women’s cycling all that closely. I’ve got kind of enough to do with all my triathlon training.”

Pooley did add, though, that if selected she would be targeting the TT “very specifically”, with Armitstead, the new world champion, almost certainly leading the road team. “I haven’t spoken to her yet. I’m sure British Cycling haven’t yet got as far as planning tactics [for the road race]. I didn’t do badly in road races in my day but I wouldn’t expect to be leading in the road race. I’ll be targeting the TT very specifically. But whoever is supporting Lizzie, she has clearly made huge progress as a rider and showed how fantastic she is. It is exciting.”