By Elizabeth Hudson
Cycling star Jody Cundy will be hoping to continue his Beijing build-up in the Paralympic World Cup races at the Manchester Velodrome on Thursday.
The Swansea-based former swimmer has made a successful transition to the sport since switching sports in 2006.
"Manchester is one of our last big international events before Beijing so it is a good test to see how we go," he told BBC Sport.
"My times are up on what I did last year which is very promising."
Both Cundy and his fellow former Paralympic swimmer Sarah Bailey have been in superb form since making the switch from the pool.
Now they both stand on the brink of selection for Beijing, hoping to join an elite band of athletes who have won gold medals in a second Paralympic event.
Cundy will be competing in the kilo race in Manchester on Thursday - an event where he is not only world champion but also the current world record holder for his LC2 category - followed by the team sprint the following day.
Despite his experience, he is looking forward to the prospect of competing at a fourth Games later this year.
"I've been able to apply some of what I've learned from swimming to what I am doing with cycling although it is a completely different sport," he said.
"In swimming it's just you and the pool and you can control it whereas in cycling you have to deal with mechanical issues and equipment and more things can go wrong but I find that exciting.
"The starts in both sports are obviously different which is something I have had to get used to.
"Everyone starts at the same time in swimming races but going out one at a time on the track has been something I've needed to get my head around.
"At one of my first international championships, I was one of the first riders to go. I set a fast time to go into the lead but it was nerve-wracking to have to sit there and wait for the other competitors.
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Cundy is a below-the-knee amputee having been born with a deformed foot which was amputated when he was just three-years-old.
Originally from East Anglia, the 29-year-old is now based in Swansea and, as well as working at the track in Newport, is a regular at the Manchester Velodrome.
He came to cycling in 2006 with an impressive pedigree having won gold in the S10 100m butterfly in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney four years later, but missed out in Athens in 2004.
However, he freely admits that the success he has had in cycling has surprised him.
"In Athens I hoped I could take part in the Beijing Games in the swimming but at that stage I never expected that I could take part in another elite level sport," he said.
"Cycling was a sport that I was always interested in and we watched some television feeds of it in the athletes village four years ago.
"Looking at the times that the riders were doing, I never thought I would be able to get close to them but I have done and that has been a pleasant shock for me.
"I now do a lot more sprint-specific work than I ever did in swimming. The track sessions are fast and intense and there is a lot of sitting around in order that your body can recover from the exertions.
"Although I won Paralympic swimming golds, I'm not really built like a typical swimmer.
"I'm physically more like one of the cyclists like Chris Hoy or Jamie Staff and I look more like the able-bodied cyclists than swimmers."
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