NO more contentious issue surrounded London 2012 than ticketing strategy.

They were inaccessible and overpriced, with lifelong fans of many sports talking furiously of betrayal. Denied seats at their sport, they were fobbed off with tickets for other events as the organisers sought high attendances to maximise revenue.

When accounts were debited without purchasers even knowing which sport they had been allocated tickets for, they were incandescent.There were accusations of lack of transparency and that the complex process favoured the well-heeled. These gained weight when squaddies on security duty had to be drafted in to paper venues after corporate ticket-holders failed to appear, leaving empty some of the best seats in the house, priced as high as £750. Genuine fans left ticketless were fuming.

This led to allegations of a tarnished legacy: the biggest PR disaster of the Olympics, to which confirmation and greater weight was lent only last month in a report from the London Assembly. They analysed data from the 2012 organising committee which revealed the organisers exceeded their ticket revenue target by 32%, raising £657m. This strengthened claims that there had been a "missed opportunity" to make the Games more accessible and affordable.

On the Saturday evening on which Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, and Greg Rutherford all struck gold, the average price paid by athletics followers was £333, while the average price across all athletics finals was £231.88. A fifth of all track and field admissions cost more than £400.

Fewer than half of all track cycling tickets were available to the public, and at one session it was only 39% filled. Glasgow have promised that at least 70% of all their tickets (one million in total), for every session in every sport, will be available to the public. Apply for four 2014 tickets for a sport, and you will either get them all, or not, with a draw where necessary; no alternative ticket offerings.

With so many potential pitfalls, it's remarkable that Glasgow 2014 this week announced a ticket strategy which it is difficult to fault. Indeed, the only critical thought that crossed my mind is that Commonwealth Games prices, by comparison with the Olympics, might even leave 2014 organisers wondering if they have underpriced them. A Glasgow spokesperson said yesterday that they "hadn't looked at comparisons like that".

The dearest ticket, priced at £250, is for the opening ceremony (cheapest, £40) while both ceremonies in London were priced at £2012, and one could use only the Olympic sponsors' credit card. Glasgow 2014 will allow all credit and debit cards to be used.

The dearest individual sports ticket (£120) is for the very limited number of ringside seats at the boxing finals. Apart from swimming, athletics and track cycling finals (all £90), no other final session is priced at more than £50. Some are half that. Considering the best seat to see Usain Bolt run in the 100 or 200 metres final in London was £750, Glasgow is a steal. You will be able to watch Bolt – or David Rudisha, the Kenyan whose Olympic 800m victory was, for me, the greatest single performance of the Olympics – for as little as £20 (£10 concession), or a maximum of £90 as opposed to £750. Some of the world's best swimmers and rugby nations will be competing. Some events will be as good as those at the Olympics.

Tickemaster, who will be handling sales, will impose no booking fees or VAT. The only additional cost beyond the cover price will be a delivery fee, to ensure secure delivery to the purchaser. And you can write in for tickets and pay by cheque or postal order. Remember them?

Glasgow arrived at a "family-friendly ticketing strategy" designed to deliver full stadia and a "Games for everyone" after having studied previous Games and London 2012. Their PR machine is too shrewd to say they have learned from others' mistakes. But that's what they seem to have done, and from successes.

The Olympics took a trick with tickets which included free London transport to venues. Glasgow are effectively copying that. That also includes local transport to venues outside Glasgow, in Edinburgh and at Barrybuddon. The organisers say they "did a lot of research in an attempt to deliver an accessible, affordable Games that felt fair, while meeting revenue targets [£100m, which includes ticketing]. We believe we have done that."

They intend to identify groups and communities "which might not otherwise be part of the Games. We are looking at that, not an afterthought. That's a forethought that we will be building in."

On ticketing at least, Glasgow seem to be heading for a gold medal.

And another thing

Athletes bidding to make the 2014 team must overcome many hazards, but it will be hard to match the experience of Andrew Lemoncello, the US-based Scottish endurance runner, who was on the receiving end of a drop kick on Saturday.

The 30-year-old from St Andrews described on Twitter what happened as he overtook an opponent in the Las Vegas 5k. "I was drop kicked by the guy in fourth as I passed him. He was disqualified luckily . . . my foot is killing me. I never thought I would get injured by being kicked during a race. It's a rough sport!" Lemoncello clocked 14:31 as he finished third.

The Kenyan Edwin Kipsang Rotich was tackled by a member of the public during a race in Brazil in January, and an unfrocked priest assaulted Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima when he was leading the 2004 Olympic marathon. But the oddest race attack was surely by Kenyan Josephat Machuka. He slapped Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie on the back of the head when overtaken yards from the finish of the 10k at the 1992 World Junior Championships. He, too, was disqualified. www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5C5z32ABww