Nicole Cooke, the great Welsh hope, was in defiant mood after her medal chances at the road race end in failure, insisting: "I'll be back."

Cooke came fifth overall in a race she was expected to win but also admitted that she lost the tactical battle, an area in which she normally excels.

"I'm obviously very disappointed with how the race turned out," said Cooke.

"The final group was good but it wasn't ideal and you really need a good mixture of riders to make it work and we had two Australians and one Russian sprinter so it really wasn't ideal and it really did muck up the dynamics of the group and we had half of us working and half of them not.

"When Sara Carrigan made her break I had just had a burn on the front of the group and it wasn't up to me to go with her. There were five or six others who could have done that but they didn't and I got caught out but, there you are, that's road racing.

"But I'm only 21 and I've got other chances of medals in this Olympics and I'll definitely be back at the next Olympics to win gold in the road race."

The race was won by Carrigan of Australia with Germany's Judith Arndt grabbing the silver and Russia Olga Slyusareva winning a nail-biting sprint that involved Cooke and Australia's Oenone Wood to take bronze.

Cooke almost came off after only 2k of the final lap and as she admits after that her medal chances were over.

She said: "I was badly affected after about 2k of the final lap when I had a little wobble and nearly came off my bike and into a barrier.

"By then though I knew that I was only riding for the bronze and my heart just wasn't in it.

The moment I rue came when I had pulled off the front and the Australian attacked and the other members of the group did nothing. It was up to them to go with her but they didn't and that cost me.

"I knew at that point that unless I did something then I was not going to win gold but I just had nothing in me. The fact that Carrigan's teammate Wood was another member of the group didn't help as she made sure a few of us were boxed in as her mate pulled away and she also did not respond to the break."

Cooke returns to the action on Wednesday for the Cycling time trial.