London 2012 hero Dani Rowe believes Britain’s track cyclists will have the absent Katie Archibald in their minds when they go for gold this week.

Archibald, 30, was due to be a key part of the women’s team pursuit, omnium and madison teams in Paris and had a strong chance of adding to her three Olympic medals.

But a freak ill-timed injury on the eve of the Games dashed her chances, with Archibald suffering a double leg break and dislocating her ankle after tripping over a step in the garden at home.

“It’s a huge blow that Katie is out,” said Rowe, who collected team pursuit gold alongside Laura Kenny and Jo Rowsell 12 years ago.

“That’s a big blow for the team pursuit and the individual events – she could have gone for three golds.

“It's a pretty close-knit team, they will train together day in, day out, even if they’re in different disciplines.

“They would have been absolutely gutted, as I was, when she had that incident that put her out of the Olympics.

“I think she will be in the back of everyone’s minds, especially the endurance girls and team pursuit girls, as she would have been a big, big part of the team.”

There is now a heavy Welsh flavour to the team pursuit squad striving for success in Archibald’s absence, with Anna Morris, Elinor Barker and Jess Roberts all going for gold.

And Rowe, who competed for Wales as well as Great Britain internationally, believes they will inspire a return to the top of the podium in the event following silver in Rio.

“The team pursuit team are hot favourites and medal prospects,” she said.

“I think they will step up again. Success breeds success, it manifested itself in 2012 and everyone wants a slice of it.

“You get inspired even more watching your teammates win. There is a huge amount of talent coming through and I think there are really good prospects across the week, looking at the way they rode in the Nations Cup and World Championships.”

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