ABERGAVENNY Festival of Cycling organiser Bill Owen has received one of the highest honours his sport can award - the British Cycling Gold Badge of Honour.

Owen stood down from the Board of Directors at British Cycling at the end of last month at the organsiation's annual general meeting having served 13 years on the Board and, in that time, brought some of the biggest races and events to Wales.

Owen is the only Welshman to have been decorated with the Gold Badge of Honour and also received a jersey personally signed by Tour de France champion and Olympic gold medalist Sir Bradley Wiggins.

His dedication to the sport in Wales saw him serve as chairman and President of Welsh Cycling for over twenty years and was elected to the British Cycling Board in 2001, having also served on the British Cycling Professional Racing Committee and the British Cycling executive committee in the 1990s..

Owen was a founding member of both Abergavenny Cycling Clubs - Abergavenny RC and CC Abergavenny - and began promoting grassroots and professional races in 1985.

The GP of Wales is one of many events that are part of the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling, which Owen launched in 2007.

Since being elected to the Board, Owen has brought the British Cycling National Road Championships to Wales an astonishing five times, the last of which was this summer when around 40,000 people crammed into Monmouthshire in June to see both the National Time Trial Championships and the National Road Race Championships for both men and women

He also brought a Women’s World Cup to Wales, which was won by legendary Welsh rider Nicole Cooke, plus an international road race event.

Owen was also, ten years ago, heavily involved and influential in the bid to bring one of only two international-standard indoor velodromes to the UK - the other being the 2002 Commonwealth Games velodrome in Manchester.

And he continues with organising the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling where he is in the final stages of planning for next year's event that will feature town centre circuit races in Chepstow and Abergavenny plus the popular Iron Mountain Sportif, the mass participation event.

He said: “I am very pleased and honoured to receive the award from British Cycling, and that Wales has been recognised for the work it puts in to promoting and supporting cycling, from grassroots through to elite events.

"It has also been an honour to serve on the Board of British Cycling and to watch the sport change from a time where we were on the threshold of capitulation when I first joined to the global success that we now are."