Dr. Una May:

It was organised at short notice. On the subject of media etc., it was broadcast live in Europe and we had over 1 million television views of the event. It was a great opportunity for what is a relatively niche area of a sport. It lends itself to the conversation around the velodrome in that we are keen. I have mentioned on a number of occasions about the diversity of opportunity that we diversify, not only into the traditional elements, for example, that cycling is one of the sports that has been recognised in the national sports policy as being a high priority, but that we look at the disciplines within that and we look not only at the traditional road cycling but also at these safer off-road disciplines.

In answer to the Deputy's question about the velodrome, we have succeeded in obtaining full planning permission and we are at the detailed design stage of tendering for the likes of the track designers and the technical design elements. We have a broad design but for the next number of months we have to go into the detailed designs required to fulfil that project to its maximum.