The Isle of Man will have a healthy contingent of riders competing in this week’s British National Road Race Championships in Northumberland.

No fewer than 12 of the island’s leading cyclists head to the northeast of England to compete in the annual championships which begin with the traditional time trials on Thursday morning.

Mark Cavendish, Peter Kennaugh and Onchan resident Ben Swift are three of the star names in a high-quality field that features World, Olympic and and Commonwealth champions.

The action gets underway this morning (Thursday) when Trek Drops duo Anna Christian and Lizzie Holden fly the Manx flag in the women’s time trial which takes place over 28.6 kilometres and starts at 11am.

Christian won the inaugural under-23 women’s time trial title on home soil in the Isle of Man last year and will therefore hopefully be in contention once again, although she will face stiff competition from the likes of Dani Rowe, Alice Barnes and Sarah Storey amongst others.

Matt Bostock is the Isle of Man’s sole representative in the under-23 men’s time trial at 1.45pm over the same distance as his female team-mates, while Anna’s brother Mark Christian and Sam Brand compete in the senior men’s TT over an extended 39.7km course.

The blue ribbon events of the championships - the men’s and women’s road races - take centre stage on Sunday.

The women’s race begins early on with an 8.45am start and takes place over three laps of a long loop course totalling 106.2km (66 miles). Again, Christian and Holden will hopefully feature prominently in the race but the aforementioned Rowe, Barnes and Storey - along with the likes of Elinor Barker and Lucy Garner - are expected to challenge for the national jersey.

The men’s road race gets underway at 1pm and features four laps of the long loop plus a further two laps of the shorter loop to cover a distance of 185.6km (115.3 miles).

A major contender for victory is Clatterbridge’s Stephen Cummings who is aiming to add to his double success from last year when he won the men’s time trial and road race on Manx roads 12 months ago.

Manxman Kennaugh will be hoping to continue his recent superb record at the nationals, having finished on each step of the podium on two occasions over the course of the last decade, winning it twice in 2014 and 2015.

Should he triumph in Northumberland, he would become the first rider to win the title on three separate occasions.

Cav has also enjoyed plenty of success at the national championships over the past few years, most notably winning the red, white and blue champion’s jersey in Glasgow in 2013.

He has also been on the podium on two further occasions since: in 2015 when finishing second in 2015 behind Kennaugh and also in 2016.

The island’s remarkable record in the men’s race also includes Castletown resident Ian Stannard who won the title in 2012 - having finished third two years earlier - and went on to claim another podium in 2015 to complete an Isle of Man 1-2-3 behind Pete and Cav.

Onchan resident Ben Swift has also featured prominently in recent years, most notably when finishing second behind Kennaugh in 2014, and he will be hoping to claim another podium finish this year.

Mark Christian goes into the championships in superb form, having claimed the biggest success of his career so far last week when winning the King of the Mountains jersey at the prestigious Tour of Switzerland.

Having also achieved impressive results on British roads - such as finishing seventh overall in last year’s Tour of Yorkshire and 12th in the previous year’s Tour of Britain - he may well be confident of more success in Northumberland.

On top of riding in the men’s under-23 time trial, Bocky will also take to the startline for the road race where he will be joined by Leon Mazzone (Holdsworth), Jake Kelly (One Pro Cycling), Sam Brand (Novo Nordisk) and Nathan Draper (Team Wiggins). Draper and Mazzone are both eligible for the under-23 classification.

The road race action will be broadcast on ITV, with highlights of the women’s road race and live culmination of the men’s race being shown from 3pm on Sunday. The programme will then be available on the ITV Hub for 27 days after the event.