Mark Cavendish praises Great Britain's Olympic 'dream team'

Mark Cavendish is confident that he can win gold at London 2012, with the help of his "dream team".

The Manx-born cyclist is in action in Saturday's road race, less than a week after winning his third stage at this year's Tour de France.

"It's doable," he said. "I couldn't do it if I was doing this alone but I need four of the strongest bike riders in the world to help me.

"And I have got four of the strongest bike riders in the world to help me."

Bradley Wiggins, who made history in Paris when he became the first Briton to win the Tour, Ian Stannard, the 2012 British National Road Race champion, David Millar and Chris Froome, who both won stages at this year's Tour de France, make up the Great Britain road race team.

"We were out training today [Thursday] and it was like 'Oh my God, this is the dream team'. Hopefully we can put that into practice and deliver the results," added Cavendish.

"We have got four Tour de France stage winners in the team, first and second in the general classification and the British champion.

"They are incredibly loyal guys, incredibly patriotic guys and really want to do this."

Cavendish, 27, missed out on a medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing when he and Wiggins finished eighth in the madison.

He vowed after that never to return to track racing, instead preferring to focus his efforts on the road.

"Every time I pull on the jersey to represent the union flag it's a big honour for me," he said.

"To represent my country - to ride as part of a team who are doing it for their country and not for a commercial wage - is a big, big thing.

"On a personal level it will be one of the biggest things - if not the biggest thing - that we can do."

Saturday's road race, which gets under way at 10:00 BST, is a 250km route, taking riders from the heart of London to the Surrey countryside and back.

"It's narrow and it's dangerous on the approach in," said Wiggins.

"You're going to have to be in the front because if there is a crash then it will block the road, so there's all those things to contend with.

"It's going to be difficult and it's a long race as well but I think other teams will be looking at us and thinking, 'How are we going to compete with these guys?'.

"And we're just sitting here not really worrying about the rest; we're just concentrating on ourselves."