LONDON - Time trial cycling champion Jason MacIntyre was killed on Tuesday after being knocked off his bike by a van while training in Scotland.

The 34-year-old, a 25-mile time trial champion and Commonwealth Games competitor, died after the collision near his home in Fort William, northern Scotland, Northern Constabulary said in a statement.

MacIntyre was airlifted from the scene but died on his way to hospital in Glasgow.

MacIntyre, at the peak of his form after a great 2007 campaign, was hoping to make the Olympic team and his death came a day after he had been given funding to train for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Last year MacIntyre broke the 10-year-old Scottish 10-mile time-trial record held by former world record-holder Graeme Obree.

"He was the best road cyclist in Scotland and as good as anyone in Britain. He was in the prime of his career," Bryan Smith, a former Scotland manager and Olympic rider told The Herald newspaper.

"Jason was good when he was young but achieved a serious breakthrough in later life - a bit like Obree."

Scottish World and Commonwealth cycling champion Craig MacLean added: "It's tragic. I think Jason was being considered for the Olympic squad in Beijing later this year and that would have been the pinnacle of his career."