The 26-year-old world champion's dream of standing on the dais with a gold medal draped around her neck was crushed with confirmation the International Olympic Committee had decided to cut the individual pursuit from the 2012 London Games.
The men's and women's points races and men's madison were also eliminated.
Shanks said she was devastated, but determined to stick with the event she described as her passion.
"Obviously, I'm pretty devastated by the news," she said.
"I guess we knew the decision was coming, but to hear it was official was pretty gut-wrenching stuff.
"Life throws some curve balls at you sometimes, but you just have to deal with the situation you've been given, really."
The move had been well signposted, with the International Cycling Union indicating its preference for change.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, cycling had seven track events for men and just three for women.
The new programme has been designed to address the imbalance.
It includes individual sprints, team sprint, women's team pursuit, keirin and the five-race omnium event.
"It is a shame that they have got rid of such a pure event [the individual pursuit]. When you think about the Olympic motto of faster, higher and stronger, I think the individual pursuit represents that.
"But I'm going to stick with individual pursuit. When you look at the big picture, we've still got three world championships before the Olympics . . . as well as the Commonwealth Games next year.
"So there is still plenty to aspire to and plenty of events in which the individual pursuit is still a major event. It is still my passion, but once London rolls around a bit closer, my focus will switch to the team pursuit."
Shanks recorded a personal best time of 3min 29.807sec, beating Beijing Olympics silver medallist Wendy Houvenaghel, to win the world 3000m individual pursuit crown in Poland in March.
The next day she was back on her bike, winning silver with the New Zealand women's pursuit team.
New Zealand has a proud record in the individual pursuit at the Olympics.
Gary Anderson won bronze in Barcelona in 1992, Sarah Ulmer gold in Athens in 2004 and Hayden Roulston silver in Beijing.
