Since Jason Queally won a surprise Olympic gold medal in the kilometre time trial at Sydney 2000, Britain have dominated the international stakes as far as medals are concerned. 

After earning four medals, including two gold, at Athens 2004, they won eight golds and 14 medals at Beijing 2008 before a further eight titles in a 12-medal haul at London 2012, and in doing this they have combined track dominance with road and BMX success.

After replacing Peter Keen as performance director in 2003, Sir David has played a crucial role in all of this success, and was knighted for his services to the sport in 2013. 

He has now stepped down to focus on his role as principal at Team Sky and, in a time of profound change for the organisation, this followed Bob Howden replacing Brian Cookson as British Cycling President after the latter departed to take up the International Cycling Union Presidency last November.

It today unveiled its new new performance pathway criteria aimed at ensuring success continues. 

"It is about changing when we are ahead and not allowing our standards to slip," said British Cycling chief executive Ian Drake.

He cited the example of the decline of the Australian team in the aftermath of Athens 2004 because they diverted too many resources away from the track team into grassroots projects. 

"Our pathway will find and develop future medallists better than any other programme in the world, and if you are a young person with talent, you have the best chance with us," said Drake. 

"We are the benchmark that others aspire to."

Future 25 time Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish was the first graduate of the Academy Programme to claim a world title when he won the madison with Rob Hayles in 2005 ©Getty Images





Drake was accompanied today by performance pathway manager Ian Yates, who outlined specific changes which have been made to the programme, focusing particularly on criteria for selecting and testing athletes rather than the specific work they do. 

For the youngest age group of 14 to 15, additional club clusters and regional schools have been set up to focus on introducing riders to the skills required for top-level competition, before the best 80 to 100 of these progress to an apprentice programme.

By the time these youngsters are 15 to 17, the top performers will graduate to an Olympic Development Programme, which will include "world class support" where participants compete in national and international competitions and are given four or five key developments objectives to focus on, to be reviewed on a six-month basis. 

Described as a "finishing school" for the world's best, it is hoped that when these cyclists turn professional, it will feel like a "step across" as much as a "step up".

At the same time, measures have been taken to ensure those who do not quite make the grade do not drop out of the sport completely, and the 280 "Go Ride" clubs across the country will be one way they can stay involved. 

The success of Liam Phillips in winning the 2013 world BMX title illustrated that the programme targets all cycling disciplines ©Getty Images



With high numbers of these medal winning graduates, including double London 2012 champion Laura Trott, being female, Drake highlighted how the programme is gender equal, particularly since the number of track events for women grew ahead of Beijing 2008.

He admitted that this is not always the same at a road level before insisting this is something they are looking at for the future.

"We are working on the success of the Friends Life Women's Tour last week, which was phenomenal and we hope it will act as a catalyst to bring more investors into the women's side of the sport," he said.

"It is not about a women's Team Sky necessarily, but about creating multiple opportunities for women to compete at the highest level."

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