You'd think that a 23 year old who won an Olympic gold medal in August would have taken his first ride in Team Sky colours in his stride, yet Owain Doull is more than happy to admit he was a little nervous ahead of his debut at Sunday's Paris-Tours. 

With a daunting 252 kilometres on the menu Doull wasn't relishing the prospect of tackling the semi-classic, but in the end the Welshman played a key role in leading out Elia Viviani - proving that the road training he's done since returning from Rio has paid off.

"Going into it I didn't really know what to expect," he explains to TeamSky.com. "I was a bit nervous beforehand. Paris-Tours is a big race, a semi-classic, and the distance too - I've never raced anything like that before, at 252km. I wasn't sure how it would go, plus I thought as my first race for the team I'd be getting bottles, riding on the front early, but I had the job to help out Elia in the final!

"The guys said I should try and save as much energy as possible and with my role in the team I knew I'd need good legs inside the final 4km, so I was a bit unsure but I felt good. In the end it was a bit of a scrappy final - the goal was to get Elia in a good position going into that last corner and I think I did that, but potentially timed my effort a bit early so I really had to dig in! But it was a good first experience of racing with the team."

Winner Fernando Gaviria (Etixx - Quick-Step) caught the peloton by surprise, launching a very early sprint to deny Viviani and the rest of the race's big-name sprinters the chance to battle for the win, but Doull had worked well in tandem with Michal Golas to keep his new team-mate up front and out of trouble - and he's looking forward to linking up with the Italian again at the Abu Dhabi Tour.

"After Rio and specifically the Tour of Britain I've knuckled down a lot, been training quite hard, and it was nice to see that pay off. I'm in a bit better shape on the road now. I'm looking forward to the Abu Dhabi Tour and racing with the lads again. It was great to be racing with guys like Elia, Luke [Rowe], [Ian] Stannard for the first time and Elia will be out in Abu Dhabi as well."

Doull also renewed acquaintances with Rowe, a rider he's known for a long time after they grew up a stone's throw from each other, and he's happy to admit that he looks up to his fellow countryman.

"I'm a couple of years younger than Rowey so when he was a junior I was starting out cycling in south Wales. Our parents' homes are literally a couple of miles apart and his dad used to coach me, so it's pretty inspiring seeing how he's stepped up so much in the Classics. Getting first-hand experience of the way he rides in the bunch on Sunday and seeing how he operates was pretty special and he's someone I look up to a lot. I'm sure I can learn a lot from him."

It's that Classics progression which Doull says he would love to emulate, and he can't wait to get stuck into the early-season cobbled races in 2017.

"The Classics are something that I've always wanted to focus on," he continues. "The first step towards that is just making the team which will be really hard with the squad we have already. If I can be a part of the team for Flanders and Roubaix, those northern Monuments, that would be pretty amazing. That's what I'm going to focus towards and I'll sit down over the winter to work out what I've got to do to get selected for those races."

For now though, he is looking forward to a break from the bike once he's finished racing in Abu Dhabi after a whirlwind year.

"It's been pretty full-on post-Games. The days where I used to have a rest day and just go to the cafe and chill out have all of a sudden become pretty busy with other commitments. Fortunately I had a week in Rio after the Games to kick back and not think about bike riding and soak it all in. 

"After Abu Dhabi I'll probably have three weeks off the bike. I'll do some other fitness stuff, a bit of gym work, I've got a couple of holidays booked - and then I'll start building up to my proper first season with the team."