THIS time a year ago Ed Clancy was in a bleak place. Not only did his Olympic dreams hang in the balance, but at one stage he feared his days as a world-class cyclist might be over. The threat of paralysis and permanent nerve damage in his legs loomed like an unwanted spectre.

Clancy’s against-the-odds return from injury saw him win a hard-fought team pursuit gold medal in Rio this summer, but the triple Olympic champion describes the time leading up to that history-making moment as “by far the most difficult period of my career”.

Last September, Clancy slipped a disc in his back. The irony is he wasn’t even on a bike at the time, but had simply bent over to pick up a suitcase after competing in the Tour of Britain. He twisted awkwardly as he lifted the bag causing a disc in his lower back to prolapse.

The injury affected the nerves running down his spine and left Clancy struggling to walk. It marked the beginning of what would be a long and arduous journey back to fitness. As the injury worsened, the 31-year-old underwent surgery in December.

“It is one of those surgeries where the doctors say it is last resort because it is not without its problems and potential risks: the most obvious one being paralysis in the legs,” he says.

“[The surgeon] had to go in through quite a delicate part of the lower back and spine to take out the problematic extruded disc material. We tried managing without [surgery] but in reality we were running out of time and didn’t have two years to manage the problem.”

Yorkshire-born Clancy estimates that the British Cycling physiotherapists spent close to “a thousand hours” working with him as he underwent a gruelling post-surgery rehab.

“It took a long time before we could get anywhere near a competitive aerodynamic position for the track,” he says. “It wasn’t an easy winter at all. I scraped into the worlds team in March, but in reality I wasn’t really ready for that.

“Nonetheless it was nice to be able to get on my bike and be back with the boys. It gave me a bit of a carrot to get the belief back that we could go on and five months later to try to win the Olympics.”

Clancy was still far from 100 per cent when he lined up alongside Sir Bradley Wiggins, Owain Doull, Jon Dibben, Andy Tennant and Steven Burke in the team pursuit at the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London. Great Britain took silver, with Australia winning gold.

Five months on, those standings were reversed. Clancy, Wiggins, Doull and Burke stood atop the podium in Rio with the Australians this time having to settle for silver. Alongside gold, the GB men set a blistering new world and Olympic record of 3:50.265.

“It meant a lot that final,” says Clancy. “Looking back, Beijing and London were pretty easy from that point of view: no illness, no injury and everything was plain sailing in the last year.

“But when you are lying on your operation bed with eight months to go, it sounds like a long time but in elite sport, you are starting at ground zero.”

He is reticent, though, to be seen to blow his own trumpet. “People go through worse,” he asserts. Clancy credits training alongside the Paralympic cycling squad as providing vital perspective.

“The biggest concern on my mind was: ‘S***, I might lose motor function in my right leg’, but I was in the gym surrounded by people who are blind or have one arm and one leg.

“It puts things in perspective and from that point of view, I don’t want to big myself up. But in terms of trying to win the Olympics, I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy. It took everything. When we crossed the line and won, it was more emotional than the other two [Beijing and London] for sure.”

Clancy will be back in action today as round two of Revolution Series comes to the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow.

He helped JLT Condor top the standings after the opening round in Manchester last month. Clancy and team-mate Jon Mould will be keen to grow their lead over nearest rivals Team Wiggins and Team PedalSure this weekend.

“I’m looking forward to it because I missed out on the Revolution Series last year,” he says. “I had signed up to ride the whole series, but because of my back problems I couldn’t do a single round. It’s a shame because I have done every one of them since the dawn of time.

“I’m back with a vengeance and will give it a good go. It will be nice to race and enjoy my bike without the ruthless, obsessive drive I’ve had to have the last few months approaching the Olympics.”

His plan is to then swap the track for a stint on the road in the early part of this next Olympic cycle. Clancy is typically candid about his aspirations. “I’ve got no real intention to go off and win the Tour de France. To be honest, it’s not within my capabilities,” he says.

“We’re on cloud nine at the moment and living the dream, but that inevitable Olympic slump will come at some point and then reality hits home. I want to do the road for the next two years and do it properly to repay my sponsors and road team who have stood by me through all this.

“Then for the final 18 months, I’ll lay everything into the track basket again and one final hurrah in Tokyo. Then that will be me done, I think.”

The Revolution Series is at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow today. For tickets, visit cyclingrevolution.com