2008 Olympian Zach Bell was on a mission this past week at the Track Cycling World Cup in Beijing, China.

Thanks to an overall consistent race, coupled with a strong finish, the Yukon cyclist was able to capture a silver medal in the points event.

Bell also finished seventh in the scratch race and should be a lock to qualify for the World Championships, which are being held later this year in Poland.

The City of Beijing has been good to Bell, who rode his way to a seventh place finish in the points race and had a 12th place showing in the madison event at the 2008 Summer Games.

Bell's silver medal at the world cup came after he just missed out of a podium result before Christmas in Cali, Columbia. Bell came in fourth in the points race in Cali.

"At the end of the day you want to be competitive with the top guys and I think that wasn't the first time," Bell said. "I had a good showing in Columbia too, but it was just off the podium. So it was good to keep that consistency and move it forward a little bit more in the points race."

This past week in Beijing, he went into the race with the strategy of playing to his strengths, which include using other riders to score some of the points early on, while saving his energy for a final push in last 30 to 40 laps.

His plan worked and Bell scored seven points on the last two laps, including five on the second last lap. There were 120 laps in total.

Bell, who also finished first in the scratch race in Cali, said he has been devoting a lot of his energy to recovering from sprints in a points race, adding it helped out in Beijing.

After the Beijing competition, Bell has a world ranking for fourth in the points race and second in the scratch race.

Bell credits his success this season to the training and experience he had at the Olympics.

"The experience of it and the training for it has completely changed me as a bike rider," he said. "I attribute all of the successes that are starting to happen now to the experience and the training and the things that I learned through the Olympics because going into the process I was obviously one of the junior kind of riders on the world cup circuit. Now I'm riding as one of the more experienced riders and making better decisions."

He added that split second decisions are crucial in cycling.

Bell has run into some bad luck in his two previous times participating at the World Championships, which have included falling in last year's points race.

This time around, Bell is hoping for a better result and hopes to medal in the scratch event and finish at least somewhere in the top eight in the points race.

"I think the capacity is definitely there to be in the top five if I get my training right, and even if I don't, I think I would be pretty disappointed if I wasn't in the top eight."