The three-year deal with caravan maker Jayco will ensure Cycling Australia's high-performance programme has greater control  in riders' preparations ahead of the 2012 London Games.

Jayco is already a massive backer of the sport , sponsiring the annual Jayco Herald Sun Tour around Victoria.

This sponsorship will give it the naming rights for the Australian Institute of Sport under-23 men's road team.

The deal is worth double what Cycling Australia had previously received from its biggest private sponsorship and will also involved backing of a professional track team.

There are massive wraps on this current under-23 men's road group, which includes rising stars such as Jack Bobridge, Leigh Howard and Travis Meyer.

Graham Fredericks, the chief executive of Cycling Australia, said: "That team at the moment probably represents the best group of talent that has come through our ranks in one generation."

This new deal is one half of Cycling Australia's efforts to have better control of potential team members in the lead-up to major events.

Last month it also announced an arrangement with American ProTour team Garmin-Slipstream, which includes Australian members of the team being available for national duty.

World champion Cameron Meyer is already on Garmin's books and Bobridge will soon join him.

Dave Sanders, Cycling Australia's head coach, said: "These guys are earning a quid and they want to ride the Tour de France, that's their life.

"We can now step them into the big league under our umbrella and you can only do that with fairly substantial financial support."

After winning a record six gold medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the national cycling team slumped to a dismal return of only one silver medal last year in Beijing, swept away by the British, who won a record eight gold medals, including seven on the track.

Critics blamed Australia's poor performance on the fact that track endurance riders - traditionally the country'sstrength strength - only had limited specific buildups to the Olympics because of their professional road commitments.

The teams pursuit squad broke the world record on the way to gold in Athens, but only managed fourth in Beijing.

Sanders said: "We have the racehorses, we've just got to keep them under control and point them in the right direction.

"In Athens, we got away with it and the guys had limited specific preparation, but they'd had ... huge backgrounds in preparation [for track endurance].

"The next Games ... they were four years further away from that preparation.

"The rest of the world, predominantly the English [sic], had gone totaly specific [with their] preparation.''