Jaco van Gass admitted that the challenges he has faced on the road feel like they have slightly diminished his Paris 2024 achievements on the track.

The Manchester-based cyclist stormed to two gold medals and several world records in the velodrome during the first week in the French capital but could only summon enough for a sixth-place finish in the road race and eighth in the time trial when taking to the road.

Even after helping teammate Fin Graham storm to road race gold on the streets of Paris, van Gass revealed that the mental and physical fatigue had just been too much to overcome in the end and was left leaving Paris feeling as if something had been taken away from his velodrome success.

"It's hard. My focus was the track so to come from those highs and winning gold and setting world records, the fatigue that sets in after that is tough," said van Gass, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games. .

"Going to the track is a hype atmosphere, people are shouting, there's hype music and you dose yourself up on caffeine.

"To then have a lull after that and then pick yourself back up the road racing, I find it very hard. It showed a bit in the time trial, apart from the mechanical I had I was pretty fatigued.

"Usually I would back myself to close some of these gaps on the road but there was just not enough gas in the legs today to do that.

"The fatigue runs deep and sometimes that takes away a little bit from the achievements on the track."

Van Gass joined forces with teammate Ben Watson to complete the 71km road race course in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

The race plan was to keep up with the leading pack to support Graham through to the final few kilometres but neither had the power to contend with the final breakaway, the two Brits ultimately crossing the line side by side for fifth and sixth.

Just happy that he could finally go and rest after a stacked two weeks in Paris, van Gass admitted that he was so exhausted he didn't even realise that it was the final lap until Watson pointed it out to him.

"I thought we had one more lap," he said. "I completely miscounted the laps, that's how delusional I am.

"Ben looked at me and asked if we were racing or coming in together and I had not heard the bell so had no idea it was the end.

"I switched off then because I was so cooked. Ben did the majority of the work on that last lap. His strength was the climbing and I was happy to take the flats.

"We're happy we got the result for GB though. Fin is up there so we're pleased."

National Lottery players raise more than £30million a week for Good Causes including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. To find out more visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk