JULIAN WINN (pictured) gazed over the Newport Velodrome yesterday and said: "It's a shame this was not around ten years ago."

Commonwealth Games road race gold medallist Winn joined officials from the Sports Council of Wales and Newport City Council to take a look at the new 250 metre track which was officially measured for accurate distance only last Wednesday.

And, suitably impressed, the Abergavenny 31-year-old, Wales' only rider on the elite world circuit, added: "It's a real coup for Wales."

The track has banking which slopes at a 47 degree angle, two degrees sharper than the only other velodrome of its kind in Britain, which is in Manchester, and used for last summer's Commonwealth Games.

Winn said he will be using the facility, which will also include five-a-side football pitches, netball, badminton and basketball courts along with an indoor 60m athletics track on the area inside the track, during the winter.

He will be competing in the opening night's competition which will see a stage of the European Derny Championships, where bike riders follow motorcycles on the track, in November.

But he added: "You never know, I might not have gone on the road if this was around when I was 20. I might have been a world track champion.

"To me, it will make a big difference. It might prolong my career."

The £7.5 million Velodrome has become part of a growing sporting village at Spytty Park which includes:

*Newport Stadium, used by Newport County AFC and Newport Harriers

* An indoor tennis centre

*The existing Spytty Park squash centre and Newport Cycle Speedway track

* Plus, a proposed multi-million pounds regional rugby union academy to be based across the road at Nash College.

Sports Council of Wales chairman Gareth Davies, who was at the Velodrome yesterday, said: "I think we can be extremely proud of delivering such an ambitious project on a shrinking lottery budget. It's excellent value for money.

"You have to realise as well that Manchester's Velodrome cost £9m in 1994 and here we are able to build one for £7.5m."

Newport council will be the ones who have to pay for the upkeep of the Velodrome and Davies said: "Newport showed initiative and desire to have the facility and it will be of great advantage not to just the top end of cycling but, with the other things here, the whole of the community."

And Newport authority's cabinet member for leisure, Glyn Jarvis, added: "The council have always been strong on sport and this is just a natural progression."

Although the track is in place, there is still plenty of work to be completed outside the Velodrome but progress is swift and predictions are that it will be finished well before the schedule date sometime in October.