“I feel I lost gold rather than won silver,” Cavendish confessed. “Tactically, I made a mistake. I wanted to be on the wheel of Sagan, and ultimately I was, but then all of a sudden the road was blocked.

“I was trying to find a way through and at around 100m [to go] I had to stop pedalling to go around Michael Matthews.

“I got back onto Tom Boonen but it was too late, I couldn’t get back onto Sagan.”

A puncture for Rowe meant it was only Blythe and Cavendish left for Great Britain in the finale, but it was not to be for the Manx Missile.

And after missing out in the final sprint in Doha, Cavendish admitted this time a silver medal was scant consolation.

“It’s difficult to take any positives out of today,” he concluded. “We did all we could.

“It was tough losing Luke Rowe to a puncture because then we would have had three in front which would have been valuable in the final, but that’s how it is.”