Paralympic Olympic Games: Neil Simpson keeping lid on medal hopes

However, his taste of glory gives Simpson belief that he can succeed again on the biggest stage.

“It does help with your confidence, of ‘right, I can deliver when the pressure is on’,” he said.

“Knowing we can deliver in those high-pressure environments like World Championships and the Paralympics, it definitely helps.

“Having that experience under our belts will be beneficial coming into these Games. It is not that first time, so that is pressure taken off as well.”

With a title to defend, a lot of eyes will be on Simpson, Andrew and his other pilot, Rob Poth, when the Milan Cortina action gets under way in March.

“You might see it from the outside as us going in with more pressure, but for ourselves it has not changed anything,” he said. “Ultimately, we are still competing against the same faces and we compete against them regularly anyway.

“It is just a larger competition and broadcast to more people.

“Our expectations are just to do with our performances. We don’t try to measure ourselves against everyone else and set position-based targets, it is all about if we can perform to our best then see where we are.”

Despite “mixed form” of late, Simpson insists there is plenty of cause for optimism.

“We had a World Cup win in December last year and then I had a lot of DNFs [did not finish],” he said. “Where we are just now in training, I am really confident with how we will do this upcoming season, but until the races start then you don’t really know where you are going to be sitting.

“We are not setting any targets like medals or golds, silvers or bronze or anything like that. It is all just if our performances are up to the level we want them to be then that is good.”