Dan Hunt came to prominence through his work with Rebecca Romero and Wendy Houvenaghel. Having been involved with British Cycling since 2005, he coached the pursuiters in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, and couldn't have asked for more: both reached the final, and therefore raced each other for the gold and silver medals, with Romero, the former rower, prevailing.

As a race coach with Team Sky, Hunt is entering new territory, though he has experience of road cycling through his involvement with Britain's world championship and Olympic teams. "I'll be helping the riders with their conditioning and training programmes," says Hunt, who is a former cyclist himself. "I raced at a pretty low level," he says modestly.

Another area Hunt will be concerned with is the intriguing sounding "special projects". He explains: "This could be concerned with team time trials and prologue time trials, helping a rider or the team target a specific goal and really analysing every detail that could contribute to performance."

It is in their analysis of the minutiae of performance that Hunt and the rest of the British coaching team, led by Dave Brailsford, have made their reputation. As Hunt explains: "We look at the small things, details. All the riders on Team Sky are professional cyclists, the best in the world at what they do, but our job is to make them even better; to make them the best they can be.

"We look at each rider on a case-by-case basis. We can look at tailored training programmes, we can recce time trial courses, and look at where races are won and lost - all these things add up to make a big difference.

"Cycling's similar to chess on wheels," adds Hunt. "In a road race you can be the strongest guy in the race and finish nowhere. Or you can might not be the strongest, but make the right decisions and win. It's never clear-cut. There are tactics and there is the mental game plan, and that, hopefully, is where we can help make a difference."