IAN Bibby will be surrounded by familiar faces when he competes in the Commonwealth Games - even if he might have to talk his fiancee’s sister out of going to watch the rugby sevens.

The East Lancashire cyclist competes in the time trial and road race in Gold Coast and, having spent six months living in that area of Australia, will have plenty of friends on the roadside.

The JLT Condor man, who lives in Mellor, will also be supported by his fiancee and her sister, although the latter will have split loyalties with her boyfriend in Jamaica’s squad for the rugby sevens.

“My fiancee and her sister are coming out, my fiancee’s sister’s boyfriend is in the rugby sevens squad for Jamaica,” Bibby said. “I don’t think the events clash but if she chooses to watch the rugby instead of the cycling I won’t be too happy! It will be nice to have a couple of familiar faces out there to pick out in the crowd and it does give you a boost.”

It won’t just be family members that will be cheering Bibby on with the 31-year-old having plenty of friends Down Under with Bibby a frequent visitor to Australia.

He said: “I went to the Gold Coast in 2015 and spent five or six months out there training so I have quite a few friends there who will come and cheer me on.”

He added: “The team goes to Australia every winter and we were there for seven weeks at the start of the year. We had a good crit race which I won last year and I have been racing against a lot of the big pro teams and the likes of Team Sky.

“In the New Zealand Cycle Classic I won the queen stage on quite a hard climb and was second in the general classification which was a good result.

“I have raced a lot in Australia and raced most of the Aussies that we will be competing against. We know a lot of the riders and what they are capable of and we’ve shown we can get the better of them.”