AT his record speed Sir Chris Hoy could cycle halfway from Glasgow to Edinburgh in just 30 minutes.
Yesterday, in less than half-an-hour, cycling fans snapped up 16,000 tickets for the inaugural event at the new Glasgow velodrome named in honour of the Olympic hero.
All but a handful of tickets for the UCI Track World Cup in the city were gone 25 minutes after going on sale at 11am yesterday, matching the unprecedented demand for cycling in the UK set by the Olympic organisers in their test event in the run-up to London 2012.
Race sessions for Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday are now sold out, with only the Friday afternoon on November 16 yet to reach a capacity crowd.
The demand came even after organisers of the event decided to almost double the capacity by inserting thousands of retractable seats, such was the interest before the public sale.
The velodrome, which is part of the £116 million Commonwealth Arena complex, is not due to open until early October and Glasgow has never before staged a track cycle event.
The sale comes even though Sir Chris has announced he will not be competing at the event, although he will be a guest of honour.
Exactly who will be competing is being finalised in the coming weeks and will be announced in mid-October. Paul Rowlands, of British Cycling, said: "The speed of the sellout rivals the Olympic events at the velodrome in London.
"We are really happy because it is great the general public have responded in this way.
"Trying to predict the speed the tickets would go was always going to be guesswork but I would have thought a quick sellout would have been 24 hours.
"To get to the stage where all the key sessions sold out in less than one hour is very pleasing."
The UCI Track World Cup Classics is a global three-race series that sees the world's best cyclists competing for the points that will ultimately determine their international ranking and qualification for the next Olympic Games. The last event was held in Colombia and after the new Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome event it will move to Mexico.
A full schedule of events is available on the British Cycling website and will include the Keirin, Sprint, Team Sprint, Team Pursuit and the Omnium.
Archie Graham, chairman of Glasgow Life, which will run the venue, and head of Commonwealth Games at Glasgow City Council, said: "We always expected demand for tickets to be high for the Track Cycling World Cup but to sell out all but one session in just under an hour is a fantastic result.
"We now can't wait for the action to get under way and for the world's best cyclists to take to the track at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome for the first time."
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