Conor White took on world-record holders and Olympians when he broke new ground by becoming Bermuda’s first track cyclist at the Commonwealth Games on Friday.

White finished eighteenth in the individual pursuit and was caught in his heat by Canadian Gabriel Seguin, but he has two opportunities in the points race and scratch race on consecutive days in Glasgow from Friday and Sunday.

The 26-year-old is looking forward to the challenge but knew he was up against it on only his second international appearance for Bermuda on the track.

“The level of competition here is Olympic calibre,” he said.

“It was tough to do anything and in the individual pursuit, my first event, the guy that has the world record was competing. That was difficult and I'm just going to try to do a personal-best time.”

So the weekend races will be where White, who won a gold medal at the Pan American Championships in Chile this year, will be trying to shock the more established names.

“The scratch race and the points race will definitely be more of a chance for me. The scratch race, I could get lucky and do what I did at Pan Ams and win that way but those are definitely races where I’ll have more of an impact. I'm looking forward to it and it’s going to be fun and exciting.”

White is relatively new to track compared with some of the sport’s big names and knows he faces a steep learning curve to compete with the best.

“Knowing how high the level of competition is means I don’t have to put that much pressure on myself to get a result because of the level of guys I'm going up against,” he said.

“I’m only in my second year of racing track, (4:29) and these guys have been doing it at a world-class level for many years. For me to go out and get a result would be amazing. One thing that’s nice is to not have that much pressure put on myself, whereas when I go to Pan Am Championships, I know that I can get a good result so I do put a bit more pressure on myself.

“But here I don’t want to do that. I just want to go out there, experience it, see what happens and hopefully something can come out of it. I want to go out there and actually be a part of the race rather than just in the race.”