Greg Henderson may be entering the last-chance saloon but he is leaving nothing to chance.
Henderson, who will be attending his fourth Olympics in Beijing, is aware he may not get to line up again at the velodrome in the greatest sporting festival on earth.
"I'm just going to go out there and race as hard as I can.
I won't leave anything out there," Henderson said.
The 31-year-old will contest the points race and madison, but it is the former he is focusing on.
He came fourth in the same race four years ago, and fifth in the world championships in Manchester earlier this year.
The points race calls for a mixture of brains and brawn.
The 32 riders cover 40km, cycling 160 laps.
Riders score points during the event, and the top scorer at the end is the winner.
The winner is the rider who, firstly, gains the most laps on the field, and secondly, scores the most points by placing in one of the 20 sprints held during the race.
In the sprints, which occur every eighth lap, the top finisher earns five points, the second three, the third two points and there is one point for fourth.
Gaining a lap is weighed more heavily - points scored in the sprints are often a factor in a tiebreaker between several riders.
"Other events are different.
They are just timed.
Like the 3000m individual pursuit, which my fiancee [Katie Mactier] does.
You just get on the bike and ride.
But it is a bit different in the points race."
Henderson is a marked man, owing to his performances in Athens and Manchester.
But with all 32 riders from different countries, team racing is unlikely, and Henderson said the race would come down to who was the best and the strongest.
"People talk about luck, but the winner is the guy who on the day is the strongest.
There may be an aspect of luck in that you avoid a crash, but if you miss the breakaway and say that is bad luck then that is not the case.
That is your own fault."
He was going into the race with an attitude of not forcing the race, and planned to treat it as just another race.
"I just want to get out there and do my job."
Henderson has been riding for his T-Mobile road cycling team in tours around the world, building up his stamina.
Points races did not occur regularly, only at major championships, so training for the event was the key.
Preparing for the games in Bordeaux, France, he trained on the track every morning and on the road in the afternoon.
But it was not just a case of jumping on the bike and pedalling around the track, or down a road.
"I was doing very race-specific training.
The training is a real mixture of sprints and other things to train me for the race."
Just about every day was the same.
After breakfast he headed to the track for up to three hours' hard training before returning to the hotel for lunch.
The afternoon would include another two to three hours on the road, then it was back to base for a massage.
He was trying to build his lactic tolerance with K5 sessions, whereby he starts by doing 4km at 100%, then a 10min break.
Then 3km, a break, 2km, a break and so on down to 500m and 250m.
Henderson's plan was the same for every points race he entered.
He tried to stay on the same lap as the leaders, and pick sprinting points at the right time.
With about a quarter of the race to go the main players became obvious, and as the race entered its final stages even fewer riders were in contention.
The world championships this year were unusual in that not one rider lapped the field.
Henderson said he never found training boring.
"That is my job, to ride my bike.
I don't get bored doing that."
Henderson is also riding in the madison with Ashburton's Hayden Roulston, but says he has not done any specific training for that event yet.
Roulston was in heavy training for the 4000m individual pursuit, in which he was considered a medal chance.
The madison consists of 200 laps, or 50 km.
It uses a tag-team format which allows one cyclist to rest while his team-mate races, and has sprints like the points race.
Henderson and Roulston won a silver medal at the 2003 World Championships in the event.
Henderson will not be just looking at his own race; he is hoping for a golden double.
Mactier, if she qualifies, may be riding for gold on August 17 in the 3000m individual pursuit.
She won the silver in Athens, behind New Zealand's Sarah Ulmer.
Henderson said the couple's wedding in Melbourne at the end of October would be extra special if both had gold medals.
Olympic profile
Greg Henderson
Sport: Cycling, points race (August 16, 9.40pm) madison (August 18, 9.30pm)
Rivals: In the points race his rivals will be Vasilii Kiryieka (Belarus), Christophe Riblon (France), Joan Llaneras (Spain), Mikhail Ignatyev (Russia), but any of the 32 riders could win.
Chances: Henderson is a genuine chance, and while already a world and Commonwealth Games champion, Olympic gold would crown his career.
