The former Great Britain rider now masterminding Denmark’s team says it is ‘laughable’ for British Cycling to blame a brain drain for their decline.

Dan Bigham has hit back after British Cycling performance director Stephen Park claimed one of the reasons his squad are no longer dominant is because Brits who have ‘acquired knowledge’ from their time on the national programme have since taken that expertise to other countries.

Bigham, who rode for Great Britain at the 2018 Track Cycling World Championships and is now a performance engineer for Denmark, suggests British Cycling are struggling because of ‘complacency’ and ‘flaws in their system’.

Former rider Dan Bigham says British Cycling are struggling because of their 'complacency'

And he has revealed how Park actually asked him to share his own secrets at a meeting 12 months ago – without offering to pay for the Derby-based rider’s intellectual property (IP).

Great Britain won only four medals at last week’s Track Cycling World Championships, which led to Park warning we should ‘temper our expectations’ ahead of this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo.

When asked why the landscape had changed, Park said: ‘Lots of people who were involved in our programme over the years are going out working with other teams. A lot of them have got Brits involved, who have acquired knowledge from their time at British Cycling and gone on to trade that effectively.’

Bigham, 28, was one of the brains behind the world record Denmark set last week in the men’s team pursuit, an event Great Britain have won gold in at the last three Olympics.

But responding to Park’s comments, he told Sportsmail: ‘It’s laughable. I think they are looking in the wrong place. It’s funny for them to be claiming that suddenly their IP going elsewhere is why they are not performing. I think there are other things at play.

‘Their downfall is not because of the work that we are doing, it’s because of the flaws in their system that they need to address. But it’s not in my interest for me to point out a million different things that I think they could do differently or better - because my job is to make sure we beat them.’

The medal table in Berlin was topped by Holland, who beat Great Britain to gold in the men’s team sprint and were coached by Brit Mehdi Kordi. He previously worked with Britain’s para-cycling squad. Simon Jones is Cycling Australia’s performance director, having been British Cycling’s head coach until 2007, and former British Olympic silver medallist Ross Edgar is the Aussies’ sprint coach.

Great Britain have the biggest cycling budget of any Olympic nation and topped the medal table in the sport at the last three Games. Yet Bigham said: ‘They have probably been a little bit complacent and not tried new things. Having had more in hand, maybe they have not pressed so hard on physiology because they know they will find 10-15 per cent improvement on technology.

Performance director Stephen Park said GB cyclists are taking knowledge to other teams

‘Maybe they’ve rested on their laurels and now they are on the back foot and it’s probably too little, too late. It’s not my place to say where I think they are spending money wrong, but I’ve heard some funny stories about how they’ve spent it.

‘If they don’t do well in Tokyo, they are going to have some questions to answer.’

Bigham has a Masters in engineering and was an aerodynamicist for Mercedes in Formula 1 before focusing on cycling. He launched WattShop, selling his own cycling products, and then set up his own track team, Huub Wattbike. Because of his expertise in cycling technology, Bigham says he was deliberately ‘left in the ‘dark’ about British Cycling’s data during his time riding with their team in 2018.

‘When I was there trialling, I never had any access to their IP,’ he said. ‘They were quite vocal about why, given that my job outside of riding is effectively selling the knowledge that I own to cycling teams.

‘So I’ve definitely not stolen anything. Why are the Danes going so much quicker if supposedly we are using GB’s IP to do that? It doesn’t really stand up to reason.

‘Before GB even knew we existed, we were doing things differently and trying out our own ideas. There are so many different aspects that we’ve done significantly different to GB and other nations.’

Bigham has previously revealed frustrations at how British Cycling have ignored the performances of British riders on his trade team, who have regularly beaten the national team at World Cup events.

GB won only four medals at last week's Track Cycling World Championships

That was the reason he met with Park and British Cycling’s then head of performance support Paul Barratt – who has since joined Team Ineos – last year.

Yet Bigham added: ‘It was a weird meeting to say the least. Nothing really came of it in the end. The intention of the meeting was around how the teams can crossover and they kind of said they would be interested in putting something in place.

‘But they said they would also like me to do a whole once-over of how they do things because they said they develop blind spots. They wanted to look beneath the hood, as it were, to try and glean that information for their own benefit.

‘They wanted me to do that - but for free. But my IP is what I sell as an individual, it’s where my value is, so for me to give that away for free would be a bit naïve.’