Jason Queally looks forward to Athens.

THE track banks at a gradient of 42 degrees, as sheer as a downhill ski slope and almost as smooth.

I'm approaching at a speed of 25 miles per hour perched on a bike with no gears and no brakes. What's more, my feet are firmly clipped in the pedals. There's no way out.

I've been waiting for this moment with a mixture of fear and eager anticipation and when it finally arrives it's a terrifying white knuckle ride.

A lap of the track to get my speed up then out of the straight to the top of the bank. Don't look down; don't try to wrestle with the bike; just keep it straight and pedal for your life.

There's a wobble half way round and my heart skips a beat. It's a long way to flat land but I make it and the adrenalin's pumping so fast I try another lap. There's nothing to it!

This is the velodrome, Manchester's medal factory, and since the Commonwealth Games spectacular I've been itching to give it a try.

The centre, which earned Britain's first gold medal at the Sydney Olympics and turned Jason Queally into a household name overnight, is ready to forge more precious metal.

The Great Britain cycling team has a chance of gold in six events and a hope of a medal in 10, and every single rider has passed through Manchester's jewel in the crown at some stage of their careers.

Sensation

I'm here to meet Queally and sample first hand the thrill of pedalling around those tortuous curves.

Queally became an instant sensation in Sydney when he won Britain's first medal of the games in the kilo event - four laps of the 250 metre track.

But he did not even start racing competitively until he was 24.

He played water polo at Lancaster University where he cycled the eight miles or so to work and went running on his lunch break.

The plan was to take up triathlon but on his first time trial on a bike he won.

"

"There was a time trial in Lancaster and they gave me a time and said it was a 1.09. I had no idea what it meant.

"And they were saying: `It's incredible. It's a really good time and you could compete in the National Championships with a time like that.

"I thought it was odd. I thought the distance or the watch was wrong.

"I went home and tried to find out more about the kilometre time trial. It transpired that the National Championships had been won in 1.07 so I decided to come down to Manchester in late '95 and have a go at riding on the track.

Never looked back

"I raced during that winter and in May '96 had a go at the Nationals and won a silver medal."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Fame nestles comfortably on Queally's shoulders but fortune has not and while he admits to making money out of success he will have to get a "proper job" when he finally hangs up his bicycle clips.

"I was a guy who took up cycling when he was 25 and four years later was riding in the Olympics. That in itself was a dream come true but to win a gold medal was bizarre.

"I had never envisaged it and had never prepared for it.

"For four years I had just been a bike rider and that's all I had to deal with, then the Olympics changed everything. I was thrown into the public arena with all the other interests associated with being successful at the Olympics.

"I wouldn't say it has made me wealthy but I have been fortunate. I have made some money. Even before the Olympics I was funded by the national lottery.

"That enabled me to be successful and without that support I could not have done it.

"But I have not made enough to retire on and I will have to get a proper job when I finish. However, I do perceive myself as being very fortunate."

Time is rolling on for the man born in Staffordshire but now living in Chorley. At 34 he is one of the oldest members of the team and no longer an automatic choice for the event in which he holds the Olympic record. Chris Hoy is the current world champion and Craig MacLean is likely to take the other place in the kilo.

This time round Queally has been focussing his attention on the team sprint.

"I accepted the position on the kilo and for me the focus for the past year or so has been the team sprint.

"And we are aiming for gold after coming second in Sydney which we were disappointed about.

"We had a few technical problems which we hope will be resolved and we will be the best on the day.

"Our training has been focussed around the team because we feel the team sprint is the banker. It's off the back of that training that individuals have been doing well on their own. Everything has been based around the team sprint training."

And this is where the velodrome has really come into its own. All four members of the team have based themselves in Manchester and train together every day.

"The velodrome has been fundamental. Without Manchester I would not be here today," adds Queally.

"There is no way in a million years I would have gone into track cycling without the facility here in Manchester. So for me it is the be all and end all.

Manchester magic

"All the sprinters live in Manchester. Craig is from Grantham on Spey, Chris is from Edinburgh, Jamie is from down south. Chris and Craig have got houses here and Jamie has an apartment so we are all based in the area.

"We don't really socialise together. When we go away to train in Australia, for example, we are together for four or five months, living out of each other's suitcases, so when we come home we are not in each other's pockets. We have our own separate lives."

Despite cycling's success at the velodrome, so far it has not produced a conveyor belt of young talent, but it's not for lack of trying.

Lottery money has gone into development programmes including a talent identification group based in Manchester.

They go to schools the length and breadth of the country trying to identify youngsters with potential.

While the going is still good, Queally has no plans to give up.

"I don't know what I would have done but for cycling. All my life I have just gone with the flow.

"When I discovered cycling and found out I could do it I decided to give it everything. And that's what I did, I had no master plan.

"I'd like to keep going at least until Melbourne in 2006. There's nobody snapping at my heels to say `old man, your time is up.'

"Until the day I stop enjoying it or become very, very slow I'll carry on with it."

And who can blame him? It's far better than a proper job.

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