Team England today named a powerful cycling squad to compete at the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games where three of the events are at Rivington.

Having failed to win a gold medal at the last Commonwealth Games, England's cycling team is determined to make amends at Manchester 2002 and looks to have the firepower to do so.

The team boasts both Olympic and World Championship medallists in an experienced line-up.

Track cycling takes place at the National Cycling Centre, Manchester Velodrome from July 30 to August 2.

The road race and mountain biking are at Rivington, the mountain biking on July 29 and road racing on August 3.

Heading the list of proven achievers is Olympic kilometre time trial champion Jason Queally, who also has medals to his credit at the last three World Championships. Jason also won silver in the event at the 1998 Commonwealth Games at Kuala Lumpur.

Riding with Jason in the team sprint event will be Jamie Staff, a recent convert to track racing following a highly successful career as a professional BMX rider in the USA.

Jamie also looks likely to ride the kilometre time trial, an event in which he became the third fastest British rider to date in only his second race at the distance at the beginning of June.

Other Olympic medallists in the team include Paul Manning, Chris Newton, Bryan Steel and Bradley Wiggins, who all picked up bronze medals at Sydney 2000 in the team pursuit, a discipline in which England are joint favourites with Australia at Manchester 2002.

Filling the shoes of recently retired Yvonne McGregor, the last English cyclist to win Commonwealth gold (points race, Victoria 1994), is Emma Davies, who was fourth in the women's individual pursuit at last year's World Championships and a clear medal hope at Manchester.

Mountain biking makes its first Commonwealth Games appearance at the Manchester 2002 Games, and in Liam Killeen and Sue Thomas, England have two athletes who already know what it is like to win over the Games course.

Liam and Sue were the winners at the England selection race last week, the first and only time that the course will be used before the Games.

England Cycling Team Manager Doug Dailey believes his team has real medal winning potential. He said: "Cycling has benefited hugely from lottery funding in recent years, and we now have a settled squad of full-time athletes with experience of competing at the highest level.

"We will be looking to perform significantly better than we did in Kuala Lumpur. The squad is based at Manchester and the track riders regularly train at the Velodrome, so the Commonwealth Games is effectively a home fixture for us, which is certain to be helpful."

England's cyclists picked up four silver medals and two bronzes at Kuala Lumpur.