Chris Hoy will lead Great Britian's medal charge in Athens

Boardman won gold in 1992 and feels a host of British cyclists are capable of joining him as an Olympic title holder.

"Our prospects are even better than they were at Sydney - and we did pretty well there," he told BBC Sport.

"We have somebody in virtually every event that is a genuine medal prospect and I don't think there is any other sport that can say that."

Four years ago Britain's cyclists returned as one of the success stories of Team GB's Olympic campaign.

They boasted a gold medal, a silver and two bronze, a whole series of personal best performances and two unlucky fourth-place finishes.

But more significantly, they have since built on that success, finishing third in the medal table at the recent Track Cycling World Championships with two golds, a bronze and a silver.

Britain's cycling contenders

Chris Hoy took the one kilometre title while Jamie Staff rode to glory in the Keirin.

And Boardman, who acts as an expert adviser to the team, is expecting more of the same in Athens.

"There are some genuine gold medal prospects like the team sprint and the kilometre, and there are some genuine gold medal possibilities - and definite medal prospects - elsewhere," he added.

"In the women's sprint Victoria Pendleton has come on in leaps and bounds.

"Physically she's capable of winning a medal but for her the question is whether she can deal with the pressure.

Cooke annihilated everybody in the British Road Race Championships Chris Boardman Boardman's road race verdict

"And then there's Nicole Cooke on the road, although it's not out of the question that she won't ride on the track.

"She's a driven individual but it's a concern she doesn't end up doing too much and become a jack of all trades."

And Boardman, a self-confessed "paranoid type", does have a nagging feeling of doubt at the back of his mind.

"It's a little worrying doing so well at the World Championships because it's too long a chunk of time to hold your peak form, but it's not enough time to come down and re-train," he explained.

"It's a real balancing act but the way you have to qualify for the Olympic Games forced us to go there.

"I would like to think that the guys were riding at about 95% and that they haven't got all the way there in terms of form, but we'll only be able to tell if that's the case in hindsight.

"Having said that all the people involved know what they're doing and they've planned it all the way through.

"There are so many possibilities that you feel something's going to go wrong.

"But my job is to look for those things that could go wrong and I can't see a great deal of trouble-shooting to do at the moment."