Brailsford, who is also the manager of Team Sky, claimed the 2008 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award after leading Britain to an unprecedented 14 Olympics medals, including eight golds, at Beijing.

The performance, which saw Sir Chris Hoy claim three gold medals, saw Britain firmly establish themselves as the world's top cycling nation.

But cycling is a sport where Australia have identified an opportunity to hit Britain's medal hopes at London 2012 thanks to the emergence of new talent like Cameron Mayer and Jack Bobridge.

Brailsford, though, has shrugged off the threat.

"We are only going to focus on what we can do," he told insidethegames.

"We can't control what our rivals do - we can only control on what we can do as a team.

"People can say what that want about us but it doesn't make any difference to us at all.

"All that matter is what happens in competition, not what is said beforehand.

"London 2012 will be a very special Games for us and our riders have got to look at racing in front of a home crowd as a real positive.

"They have got to embrace it and feed off it, not see it as a negative.

"People still keep talking about Beijing and what we did there but London will be very different from Beijing.

"A lot of people look back and are trying to predict where we are from Beijing but that is unrealistic and in other sports - that would never happen.

"In football, you would never turn around and look at who won the Premier League four years ago to try and predict who will win it this year.

"So much changes in sport over a short time.

"We have to stop looking back at Beijing and just look at what we can do in London.

"We are doing all the things that we think are necessary for us to be the best we can be and we are not thinking at all about what anyone else is doing."



Brailsford claimed that he feels that the London 2012 Velodrome, which was unveiled today as the first Olympic Park venue to be fully completed, will put his team, including Olympic sprint champion Victoria Pendleton (pictured), at an advantage.

The new venue will have seating all the way round the track to create the best possible crowd atmosphere during events has been designed with the aim of creating the world's fastest cycling arena by tailoring the geometry and setting the temperature and environmental conditions to create the perfect stage for world records.

"The London 2012 Velodrome is the fastest Velodrome ever built and I think that suits our team," said Brailsford.

"The architects have been very clever in taking all the best bits from the best Velodromes around the world and they have come up with a super venue.

"Having seats all the way around really increases that atmosphere and maximises home support and we are looking forward to working on it."

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