Liam Killeen might have won an Olympic medal four years early had he not gone over the handlebars on the first lap of Saturday's mountain bike race.

The British cycling team management are expecting great things of the Malvern 22-year-old but not until the next Games in Beijing.

However, he gave a perfect illustration of his potential in the mountains that overlook the Olympic Stadium by battling back to fifth place from a fall which saw him drop to 20th.

It is unlikely he would have got near French winner Julien Absalon, whose lead was so comfortable he was able to cruise across the line carrying a huge tricolore.

Jose Armida of Spain earned a deserved silver medal but Killeen was just under a minute and a half behind the third-placed Dutchman Bart Brentjens, who won the inaugural Olympic mountain biking in Atlanta.

And Killeen, the first British rider to win the under-23 World Cup series, was left thinking about what might have been, as he said: "I lost a lot of time and it all adds up, doesn't it? So who knows?"

The other Briton in the race, Oli Beckinsale, finished in 17th place but that was high enough to suggest he is capable of a medal in the Commonwealth Games two years from now.

Killeen had won the test event here last year so he was prepared for the dust and rocks which greeted the riders as they stormed into a very quick start with Germany's Lado Fumic leading the way.

The Briton was up against it from the start as he was caught behind a pile-up - involving Beckinsale - on the first bend.

It allowed an escape by a group of 10 riders and Killeen, in trying to pull back the time, tried too hard.

"I just overcooked it on a really loose bend and went over the bars," he said.

"I was having mental problems then trying to stick in the race I dropped back to 20th and that was tough but then I got it going."

Killeen was caked in the orange dust which swirled around the 6.3km circuit and his blue uniform was torn at the shoulder.

His chance of winning was gone and even getting a respectable finish was going to be difficult but the Commonwealth bronze medallist was determined to at least finish the race.

Although he was having a hard time closing the gap on the leaders, they were not getting further away and he was at least moving up through the field the longer the race went on.

As Absalon pulled off into a lead which would win him the race, Killeen found himself drifting further off a gold medal-winning time but the Briton had advanced to eighth place with two laps to go.

Going into the last of the seven laps he was sixth and still well over two minutes shy of a medal but he was able to cut huge chunks out of Brentjens' lead on him as he seemed to grow stronger on the final circuit.

He was smiling as he crossed the line in fifth and he is determined to improve on that four years from now.

"I'm looking forward to the next Games," he said. "But there are a lot of big races between now and the next Olympics - I've got the World Championships in 10 days' time."

Beckinsale was satisfied with his performance as it points to Commonwealth success in Melbourne, although the 28-year-old admits he found the pace set by the leaders too much to take.

"I got taken out on the first bend but it wasn't really a problem as I was planning to start slow," he said.

"With the conditions and the length of the race I just wanted to ride my own race and let everybody else do what they wanted to do.

"It did start ridiculously quick and there was only so many guys who could carry that through.

"But I really want to push for a medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 and today if you just took the guys from Australia and New Zealand I would have been on the podium."