ONE of the biggest names in British sport is set to pound and pump his way around the roads of Abergavenny this June after entering the 2009 National Road Race Championships.

Double Olympic Games gold medalist Bradley Wiggins has been added to the start list for the June 28 race around Monmouthshire.

And he will be in elite company during his stay in town as other Beijing Olympics heroes, including Wales' own golden cyclists, Geraint Thomas and Nicole Cooke, are lining-up to ride over the Championships weekend.

Wiggins, 28, shot to national fame in the 2004 Olympics where he won gold on the track in the 4km Individual Pursuit, and became one of only two British riders to stand on top of the podium with Sir Chris Hoy.

Wiggins, who trained with the British team for that Games and for last summer's event at Newport's Wales National Velodrome, went onto claim two more golds in Beijing when he successfully defended his Individual Pursuit title and added the Team Pursuit crown, with Thomas part of that quartet.

He was awarded a CBE in the 2009 New Year's Honours List for his contribution to cycling and has signed for the leading professional team Garmin-Slipstream for this season.

Abergavenny Festival of Cycling organiser Bill Owen told the Chronicle, "We are delighted to have an entry from Bradley to ride this year's event. He is without doubt one of the best cyclists Britain has produced.

"We are only too pleased to be able to add his name to the start list and I am sure he will be going all out to add the road title to his Olympic track successes.

"At present, we have three Beijing Olympic gold medalists in the weekend races and I am sure others will want to try their hand at our testing but spectacular course.

"We all hope, of course, for a home clean sweep of National titles, with Cwmcarn's Sam Harrison in the juniors and Nicole taking the women's title, followed by Geraint taking the men's title.

"But, with someone like Bradley Wiggins competing and many other former national champions riding, it is really shaping up to be anybody's race, a wide-open affair."

Those other big-names in the men's race line-up include Chris Newton, who took bronze in the 2008 Olympic Games Points Race and was the 2007 winner of the season-long domestic road race series, the Premier Calendar.

Also, Russell Downing, who won both the Get Connected! Criterium and the Robert Price Grand Prix of Wales during the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling last year, is set to compete.

Additionally, two of Wales' brightest young stars will be facing the big boys.

Cardiff brothers Luke and Matt Rowe are pitting themselves against the top riders and, at present, 19-year-old Luke, in particular, is on fire.

The Great Britain Academy rider took the Dutch Under-23 World Road Cup race recently, adding it to his achievement of a superb second place in the Trofeo Antonio Rancilio in Italy three weeks earlier at the end of March

He clocked four hours 13.58 seconds to take the tough Dutch 180 kilometre race from Czech rider Vojtech Hacecky.

And he helped himself to a significant scalp as one of the brightest young global stars, American Taylor Phinney, a world track champion, could only finish fifth, six seconds behind the Maindy Flyers CC member.

Rowe spends a significant part of his time over in Italy with the British Academy team these days and has Derby-born Tour de France stage winner and 1996 Olympic Games bronze medalist Max Sciandri as his team manager.

Meanwhile, a week before the three National Championships races take place in Abergavenny, the public can ride part or all of the routes themselves via the two-day Iron Mountain Sportif which opens the Festival on Saturday June 20 and Sunday June 21.

Full details of this year's eight-day Festival and entry for the Iron Mountain Sportif are available at http://www.abergavennyfestivalofcycling.co.uk">www.abergavennyfestivalofcycling.co.uk