“I’m feeling pretty good. I think I’ve come through about where I expected to be. I haven’t really done a huge amount of track training ahead of this,” said the world points race champion.

“So I didn’t have the power or top end speed, but the last couple of weeks have been a lot better than I thought it was going to be, which is a good place to be.

“I’ve used this racing block as training to get that top end speed, and I feel like I’m faster now than I was three weeks ago.

“So hopefully I’ll be going well on Saturday and Sunday.”

“So it’s nice to have a squad that has that quiet confidence about them and that we can say ‘this is how fast we want to be in a few years’. Or ‘this is the step of the podium we want to be on in a few years’ – it’s pretty exciting to be in that place.

“I don’t really think about being the more experienced one now. It’s nice in a way, I’m really enjoying it.

“But I don’t feel like I’m much older or a huge amount more experienced than the girls coming through.”

On November 10-12, riders including Elinor Barker, Katie Archibald, Phil Hindes and Ed Clancy will compete on the Manchester Velodrome in one of the most anticipated events on the track cycling calendar. Buy your tickets here.