ABERGAVENNY Festival of Cycling organiser Bill Owen has been honoured by Welsh Cycling with a Lifetime Achievement award.

And there were a number of other winners from Aber at the inaugural 2013 USN Awards held at the Village Hotel, Cardiff, on Friday.

Becky James received the Outstanding Performance of the Year for her world class performance at the 2013 UCI Track World Championships where she became the first Briton to win four medals at one championship event.

Other winners at this year's ceremony include Stephen Lane, Coach Co-ordinator at Abergavenny Road Club who picked up Coach of the Year and Abergavenny Road Club was also named Club of the Year.

Owen, who was also named as the Individual Race Organiser of the Year at the awards, has been in cycling for 50 years. He retired early from competitivelly riding after a short career because he started his own building company. However, he has been heavily involved in off-bike matters ever since.

Bill has been on the board of British Cycling for many years, he is a former president and board member of Welsh Cycling and his enthusiasm for cycling and for bringing the greatest riders in the country to Wales has seen him organise many national and international competitions from scratch.

He was at the forefront of the ambition to get a National Cycling Velodrome for Wales built which eventually came to fruition ten years ago, with the world class facility - one of only two in the UK at the time - opening in Newport.

He brought the National Road Race Championships to Abergavenny in 1996 when David Rand won the title. Since then, the area has hosted the Elite Men's Road Championships five more times.

And, in 2009 for the first time in British Cycling history, Bill surpassed himself by staging all three major road Championships in the UK - the juniors, women's and men's - on one weekend over two days.

Now the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling, with help from Monmouthshire County Council, will stage the 2014 Elite Men's and Women's Road Race Championships along with the National Time Trial Championships and the Para Grand Prix of Wales as Monmouthshire continues its aim to become the Cycling Capital of Wales.

After receiving his Lifetime Achievement award, a delighted Bill said, "I'm lost for words but it has given me more incentive and drive to carry on. It is always nice to be appreciated and, when you are, you put that extra effort in you to do more.

"I always remember (Chris) Boardman saying that sport is 95 per cent disappointment and I have had my fair share of disappointments quite a few times but on occasions like this, it makes it all worthwhile."