THE Mancester Velodrome will showcase the world's finest cyclists when it hosts the UCI Track Cycling World Cup early next year.

The three-day event, which runs on February 23-25, is the final and most important round of the World Cup series. There will be world cup medals and world championship qualification at stake for the world's top 30 nations.

The teams will have already raced in Sydney in November, Moscow in December and Los Angeles in January in a bid to be crowned the World Cup winners in Manchester. And it will also serve as vital preparation for countries with ambitions at the track world championships, which take place the following month in Palma, Mallorca.

Britain has successfully developed its pedigree in producing world class track cycling athletes. The British team boasts many top-class cyclists, including world and Olympic men's kilometre champion Chris Hoy and women's world sprint silver medal winner Victoria Pendleton.

And British Cycling's performance director Dave Brailsford is in no doubt as to the importance of the Manchester event. "The event takes on extra significance as the teams vie to consolidate their world championship starts, and the overall world cup winners will be decided," he said.

Crowd

"It will be a great pleasure to ride in front of a home crowd in a packed velodrome. We would encourage the crowd to get behind the British team to inspire them. We have a whole raft of younger riders, too, who will be able to ride in the Trade teams.

"The World Cup is a great opportunity to blood the youngsters to gain valuable experience fighting it out against the world's elite athletes."

Three days of hotly- contested competition starts on Friday morning. Day tickets cover admittance to both the early and evening race sessions. There is a selection of finals on every night with season tickets available for all three days.

The British sprint trio of Chris Hoy, Ross Edgar and Craig McLean would be a force to contend in any of the sprinters' events.

McLean won sprint gold in round one in Sydney, beating Edgar into second, and Hoy duly won the kilo time trial, wearing the world champion's jersey he won in April. The three then combined to take the team sprint victory.

The men's team pursuit squad have always enjoyed the rivalry with the Australian team and Britain will be out to reverse the world championship defeat they suffered early this year.

After Britain had qualified fastest, the Australians beat Geraint Thomas, Rob Hayles, Paul Manning and Stephen Cummings in the final by just over a tyre's width after 4,000 metres of racing.

Expanded

Women's track racing has expanded enough over recent years for the UCI to introduce a team sprint this year. A team of two riders will set off from a dead start, with the first rider peeling off after a lap to leave the remaining cyclist the task of blasting round one lap of the 250m track with the fastest team winning.

The likely British pairing should be Victoria Pendleton and youngster Anna Blyth.

Bolton's youngster Jason Kenny will also be looking to make an impact in his native North West, having already won four junior European championship and three junior world championship medals this year.

The whole weekend finishes on Sunday night with a spectacular invitation Keirin. The men's sprinters will be fighting it out for a share of é47,000, one of the biggest purses put up for a track race. It is sponsored by the Japanese Keirin Association.

The sprinters line up behind a derny motorbike and jostle for position as it goes faster around the velodrome. The bike pulls out after six laps to leave two to go with the riders fighting over the last 500m.

The event is just one of many top class sporting occasions being supported by Manchester City Council next year. Full details of the programme on www.worldtrack cycling.com, where there is a link directly to the Ticketmaster website.

EVENTS: Friday Finals: Men's 1K Time Trial, Women's Points Race, Women's Sprint, Men's Individual Pursuit, Men's Keirin. Men's Scratch Race

Saturday Finals: Women 500m Time Trial, Men's Team Pursuit, Men's Points Race, Men's Sprint Final, Women's Individual Pursuit, Women's Team Sprint

Sunday Finals: Men's 40km Madison, Women's Scratch Race, Women's Keirin, Men's Team Sprint, Men's Invitation JKA Keirin