World champion cyclist Andy Tennant hopes that road events at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games will visit the neighbouring Black Country.
The ambition comes as this year’s British National Road Championships will include racing in the region, which lies to the west of Birmingham and includes places such as Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley.
Riders are due to cover a route on June 20 that will begin at Birmingham’s Centenary Square and end at Queen Square in Wolverhampton.
Tennant, who won team pursuit gold at the 2012 Track World Championships in Melbourne, is from Wolverhampton.
He also won silver in the same discipline at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
“It’s amazing for my home city to be presenting such a prestigious event,” said Tennant to the Express & Star.
“Obviously we have got the Commonwealth Games coming up and Wolverhampton is interested in being involved in that.
“It would be great if the West Midlands’ wider community could be involved somehow in the Commonwealth Games and not all the locations in Birmingham.
“The idea is a legacy is left behind.”
Hugh Porter, who won four world titles in the 1960s and 1970s in the individual pursuit, as well as the Commonwealth Games gold in Kingston in 1966, is another cyclist from Wolverhampton to support the idea.
“The National Championships could be the stimulus for the Commonwealth Games,” the 80-year-old said to the Express & Star.
“I’m hoping it will be the catalyst to awarding one of the road events to Wolverhampton.”
