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Chris (right) goes through some of the work required with Will Forbes who was at his first major championship with Team GB.

Looking back on the track Euros from the sports analyst's perspective, it was a positive start to the Olympic qualification programme and to the two year build up to London 2012. The results and times were good across the board (top of medal table) however there is an obvious appreciation that there is still plenty to do and we are being pushed extremely hard by all the other nations.

Morale in the camp was high throughout the week especially when the new Watt bike was broken out and the coaches max power competition began - I think Jan Van Eijden, sprint coach (and former World Sprint champion) is currently in no 1 spot but there are still 21 months to London. Not that I back myself to top the table as I won't ever have a go for the sake of embarrassing myself!

From a Performance Analysts (PA) perspective, it was Will Forbes first competition having replaced Duncan Locke who can now be seen trying to get on the TV at England Rugby Internationals when they cut to Martin Johnson. Considering he had only been in the job a week, he did a cracking job getting right in there and learning the sport in the heat of competition.

As ever, we are always trying to (and expected to) push the level of the support we offer in competition with a big focus across the year being placed on the efficient delivery of information from the stands to the coaches in the track centre (data, graphs and video) in real time and hence why everyone wants an IPAD now! 

The Euros was also the first competition with the Olympic format Omnium being contested (cycling's decathlon) and so a lot of analysis focus is going into understanding the demands of this brand new event and then trying to optimise the strategy to win.

The new Devil elimination race (the last rider is eliminated every two laps) is also a complete unknown in international racing and so this event is a challenge within the challenge really. However, it's an exciting challenge from a PA perspective and one that I am confident that once we have seen a few more omniums across the year, we will have a pretty good handle on the 'number behind the omnium' and this will assist the coaches and riders in  how to approach this new event.

Chris demonstrates to the Minister for Sport the technology behind the training with Dave Brailsford and Shane Sutton.

Thinking about more omniums brings us around to the Melbourne World Cup classic (2nd-4th December) which we leave for on Friday with a men's Endurance and Sprint squad. Again, it should be a pretty exciting event and one that we are in a good state for particularly as it's a chance to go into the Aussies back yard and take them on after their success at the Commonwealth Games.

We also land in Oz as the first Ashes test is underway and so we will try and do our bit in Australia to support the cricket guys (the velodrome is at the back of the famous MCG cricket ground). Melbourne is also a great city to spend a week in especially as it’s their summer and so the flip flops (called thongs in Australia Chris) and shades will also go in the bag.

After Melbourne, I am back to the UK for a week and then off to Columbia for the next World Cup and so I have also packed a jet lag strategy as I go 10 hours forward, 10 hours back, 5 hours back, 5 hours forward in 22 days! Not sure who organised two competitions on the other side of the world separated by two weeks?

Chris (right) and Will Forbes up in the stands checking cameras and computers are all functioning at the European Track Cycling Championships in Poland recently.