Three-time national champion Liam Killeen admits he must adapt his riding style if he is to challenge for a medal at London 2012.

Killeen finished fifth on his Olympic debut in Athens in 2004 and, having missing most of the 2007 season with illness, recovered to ride to seventh in Beijing four years later despite an early crash and mechanical.

With limited lumpy terrain in Essex, London 2012’s Hadleigh Farm course is setup to produce a super-fast race and Killeen has modified his winter training plan to focus on his ability to produce explosive efforts over multiple laps.

“The style of mountain biking has been condensed throughout my racing career right up to London and this means there really is little room for error,” Killeen told British Cycling. “Obviously it is an endurance event but there is a focus on explosive sprinting throughout the race, which leaves the type of rider who will be up there as someone who can go very hard for the first few laps before holding on to the finish.

“The best guys will continue that effort for the duration but there seems to be a lot of guys now who can go the same speed as the leaders for the first couple of laps. To be honest, producing consistently explosive first laps isn’t my strong point – or hasn’t been my strong point – so throughout this winter I am going to be looking to increase my explosive ability and speed in the early part of the race.

“I think I have got to put a big effort in to adapt to the new style of cross country racing, but it is still an endurance event so you can’t neglect that base condition which you do need to work on in the off season. To sum it up I will be incorporating a bit more power and speed work in the next few months compared to previous winters.

“Coming into December that means I will be doing some cyclo-cross, which incorporates that short sharp top end work; that will be one of my weekly power speed sessions and one or two other sessions per week along with some traditional endurance work before returning to the mountain bike season.”

Julien Absalon dominated the London 2012 test event in August, leading from starting to finish at Hadleigh Farm to claim gold ahead of Christoph Sauser and Austrian Karl Markt respectively.

And Killeen highlighted the important of a good start in order to remain in contention on the course, with the 29-year-old planning an assault on next year’s early-season races to secure a high position on the start line.

“I know I need to bank some decent UCI points in some of the early season racing to try and optimise my gridding for the Games in August,” he said.

“Ideally I’d like to be on the first row, that or the second row is where I need to be. The start on the London Olympic course is pretty crucial; the way it sets you up for the first part of the first lap means you need to be in the top eight riders.”

The two-time Olympian added: “I still remember my first games, very much so. Athens was a big event for me, I’d done the Commonwealth Games in 2002, but the Games is the next step up and the highest step. The race itself, it’s a bit of a blur, but I can remember getting a good performance out of myself – I was satisfied with how I rode.

“After competing in Athens, I was looking forward to Beijing and I wanted to raise my game. In the race I had a bit of an unfortunate first lap and didn’t do my best to give myself the opportunity to get a top result after crashing early on and having a mechanical.

“But the way I rode that day, I was pleased with the performance under the circumstances, so hopefully I can use all that knowledge and experience to get me through this winter and the early part of next year.”