Nicole Cooke, the Olympic and world road race champion, is likely to spend the rest of the season racing in GB colours after the collapse of her Vision 1 team. Cooke said the team, which she set up following her historic double, has cancelled its racing programme for the remainder of the season, owing to financial problems.

Dave Brailsford, the British Cycling performance director, said that she would be supported by the governing body in the build-up to a defence of her world title in Mendrisio, Italy at the end of September. "We are in regular contact with Nicole, and we have a regular programme for the girls in the GB squad lined up for the end of the year," Brailsford told Cycling Weekly.

"We are more than happy for Nicole to join the GB squad in preparation for the world championships," he continued. "She is the reigning Olympic and world champion and we'll do everything we can to support her in her attempt to retain the world title."

Despite her success last year Cooke has endured a difficult season, with her ambitious efforts to set up the new team apparently foundering from day one, principally through a failure to attract a headline sponsor. It followed a parting of the ways, at the end of last season, with the Halfords Bikehut team, established by Brailsford and British Cycling in 2008 to support Cooke's bid for Olympic glory.

With that mission accomplished, Cooke abruptly left, amid suggestions that her relations with British Cycling were strained. But now it would appear that necessity will bring the two parties together again, at least until the end of the season.

Cooke, who withdrew from the recent Thüringen-Rundfahrt stage race with a virus, is expected to return to competition, in GB colours, at the Plouay World Cup on 22 August.