Second Edition News for December 7, 1997

Contracts and Transfers

Solbiate - Olona, Italy, World Cup Cyclo Cross, December 6

 1. Daniele Pontoni (Ita)
 2. Richard Groenendaal (Ned) 		0.21
 3. Marc Janssens (Bel)			1.07
 4. Thomas Frischknecht (Swi)		1.09
 5. Adri van der Poel (Ned)		1.28
 6. Dieter Runkel (Swi)			1.31
 7. Erwin Vervecken (Bel)		1.36
...
12. Wim de Vos (Ned)

World Cup Standings

 1. Richard Groenendaal (Ned) Rabobank	120 points
 2. Adri van der Poel (Ned) Rabobank	102
 3. Dieter Runkel (Swi)          	 88
 4. Daniele Pontoni (Ita)        	 68
 5. Erwin Vervecken (Bel)        	 60
 6. Marc Janssens (Bel)			 59

Eernegem, Belgium, Cyclo Cross, December 6

 1. Danny De Bie
 2. Arne Daelmans             	0.13
 3. David Willemsens           	0.27
 4. Peter Willemsens           	0.47
 5. P. Van den Abeele		1.40

35 starters

Track Racing at Adelaide Superdrome, December 7, 1997

Melbourne born Anna Wilson set an inaugural Australian Women's hour record tonight at the Adelaide Superdrome. The distance ridden was a very good 45.399km. She rode a 52 x 15 gear. Wilson from Victoria, riding with VIS is the current Australian road time trial champion. Wilson took 30 minutes after the race before she could stand up she was so exhausted.

During an interview with commentator Jimmy Jacques she said that with the adrenaline at the start she went out too fast and consequently hurt from the start. The last 20 minutes was the hardest, with blurred vision she said is was difficult to concentrate and hold a steady line. She said that without the support from the crowd she would have retired with 10 minutes to go.

Although riding less than the goal of 47km Anna said that the data recorded from the heart rate monitor will indicate what can be done to achieve her goal in the future.

50 kms Madison

Stuart O'Grady and Michael Rogers teamed together in the annual 50km madison at the Adelaide Superdome gaining 2 laps on the field except for suprise second place getters Shane Kelly and Brett Lancaster who managed to spring from the pack latching onto O'Grady's wheel preventing the loss of another lap. Brett Aitken and Jay Sweet were teamed together to get third place.

 1. Team 1 (Stuart O'Grady - Michael Rogers)	53 points
 2. Team 8 (Shane Kelly - Brett Lancaster)	32 points (+1 lap)
 3. Team 2 (Brett Aitken - Jay Sweet)    	37 points (+2)

6 Cyclists among Australia's 100 Champions of Sport

Here they are with the brief text that accompanied each entry (as published in the Australian and written by Rupert Guinness and Harry Gordon).

Phil Anderson (1958- )

It took more than 40 years for an Australian cyclist of the calibre of Sir Hupert Opperman to come again. However, after winning a gold medal at the 1978 Commonwealth Games road race and turning professional in France in 1980, Phil Anderson surpassed Oppy to etch his name as Australia's greatest ever road racer. In 1981, he was the first Australian to don the "maillot jaune" - the leader's jersey - in the Tour de France. After wearing it for a day - and again for 10 days in 1982 - he is still the only Australian to have done so.

The one-time Tour favourite notched up five top 10 overall places - including 2 fifths. But he also starred in one-day classic racing. Ranked No. 1 in the world in 1985 when he won 16 races, Anderson's biggest career wins included the 1983 Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands, the 1984 Grand Prix of Frankfurt in Germany, and the 1986 Blois-Chaville and the 1985 Dauphine Libere stage race in France.

A back injury restricted his career after 1986, but in his twilight years he was always competitive. In 1992, he claimed 12 wins, including a stage in the Tour de France, the Tour of Ireland, and the Tour Mediterranean. He retired after winning a gold medal at the 1994 Commonwealth Games Team Time Trial. The London-born Anderson now lives on his farm in Jamieson, in north-eastern Victoria.

Danny Clark (1951- )

It is difficult to say what Danny Clark should be best remembered for - setting world records, winning world and European titles, dominating the European Six Day track season for so long, or simply the longevity. It was only this year that he ended his riding career, and then by accomplishing another feat of note: the Milan Six Day race, which finished on February 12, was the 234th Six Day event of his career - in itself a world record.

His greatness did not take 234 races to evolve, however. A silver medallist in the 1000m time trial at the 1972 Munich Olympics, he won four world championship gold medals - in the 1988 and 1991 motor-paced and 1980 and 1981 keirin titles. He als won 8 European titles, six other world title medals and the third highest ever tally of 71 6-Day races.

The moustached Tasmanian dubbed the "Super Athlete" in Europe, is not just a performer on wheels either. At many a six-day race, Clark entertained the packed stadiums between heats by singing and playing guitar on stage. The longevity of his career provoked as much respect as it did bewilderment. After reneging on previous announcements of retirement, any believed he would pedal until he dropped. And even though it seems he has finally followed through with his pledge, some still don't believe the show is over.

Russell Mockridge (1928-58)

Percy Cerutty (a great Australian Track and Field coach) called him the most unusual athlete he had ever known: "tormented, sensitive, one of the best natural sprint runners I ever saw". The good news about Russell Mockridge was his sheer abundance of talent. The bad news was his defective eyesight which made it difficult for him to see across the road. He came to be ranked as Australia's finest cyclist, but his career was hardly conventional. He attended Geelong College, one of Victoria's more exclusive public schools (public means private!) and not a noted breeding ground for professional cyclists. A loner, he was lured into cycling because his short-sightedness kept him out of the usual ball games. For his first race in Melbourne he wore a sleek white jersey, a pink hat, a kerchief in Geelong College colours, with the stems of his spectacles held to his temples by white tape; it earned him the nickname "Little Lord Fauntleroy". He was in turn a cadet journalist, a university student, and a candidate for the Anglican ministry, and abandoned each for cycling.

What separated Mockridge from other riders was his mastery of all disciplines of the sport. He has his first open road race in 1947, and within months had won the Australian amateur road title and gained selection for the 1948 Olympic road team. In 1950, he won gold medals in the sprint and time trial at the Commonwealth Games, and two years later became the first rider to win both the amateur and professional divisions of the Paris Grand Prix sprints (Saturday and Sunday). In Helsinki in 1952, he won Olympic Gold in the time trial and tandem. He turned professional in 1953, won three Australian road titles and the Paris Six-Day, and rode impressively in the 1955 Tour de France. He died during a race, after colliding with a bus.

[Bill notes: There is a book called My World of Wheels which is a must read for cycling fans. It is Russell's biography. He influence my own thinking as a cyclist more than anyone. "Before you can learn to win a race you have to learn to finish it!" is one quotation from his book I recall. I always finish. He died near to where I grew up in Melbourne during the Tour of Gippsland. The bus driver drove out into the on-coming peloton. Russell was caught under the back wheel still alive. The bus driver thought he should move the bus and went the wrong way and crushed Russell. Russell is to me a real Australian star!]

Sir Hupert Opperman (1904-1996)

The man known as "Oppy" was not idolised only in Australia. In 1931, a leading French sports journal, Auto conducted a survey among the nation's sportswriters to find Europe's Sportsman of the Year: Hupert Opperman won the most votes and the title. That year he had endeared himself to fans with an emphatic win in the longest road race in the world, over 1168kms from Paris to Brest and back again.

A couple of seasons earlier he had achieved a huge feat of endurance by winning the Bol d'Or, grinding out lap after lap at the Montrouge Stadium outside Paris. The aim of that event was to find which cyclist could travel farthest in 24 hours. Oppy survived a couple of broken chains (sabotage by rival teams, it turned out) and the odd indignity (after-dark urination in the saddle) to score a memorable victory. His distance of 910 kms was a world record.

Born in the Victorian town of Rochester, he was riding a bike at 8 and continued the love affair with the bike in his first job after leaving school at 15 - as a telegraph messenger boy. He won the Australian road title in 1924, and again in 1926, 1927, and 1929.

Overseas and in Australia, he created world records and performed heroic feats over a range of intriguing distances and routes, always on a Malvern Star [Bill notes: a classic bike made originally in factory near my home in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern] Once he set a record for the 1386kms from Land's End to John O'Groats, and later rode from Fremantle (WA) to Sydney (opposite coast) in 13 days (across desert). He celebrated his retirement in 1940 with a 24-hour marathon at the Sydney velodrome breaking 101 records in the process. Fittingly when he died he was seated on his exercise bike.

Sid Patterson (1927- )

A larger than life figure, Sid Patterson was destined to leave his mark in life - whether on or off the saddle. Even today, while running his bike shop in Melbourne the tall and heavily built 70-year old cuts a mark on anyone who meets him.

European cycling aficionados still shake their head in amazement when his name is mentioned; not just for his successes, but for the way he attained them. His winning margins were often huge, a feat made all the more noteworthy considering his penchant for a beer or two before - and after - race day.

Patterson's cycling career hit its peak inthe late 1940 and early 1950's when he won four world track titles, set a world record and amassed 16 wins in the lucrative 6-Day track racing circuit. His prowess was in the sprints and the endurance-based pursuit events. His first world championship came in the 1949 amateur sprint title. he then won the 1950 amateur pursuit title, followed by the professional pursuit crowns in 1952 and 1953.

In 1952, he also set a new world professional record for the "Flying" 1000m time trial. Throughout, he mixed it with the sprint specialists, winning a bronze medal in the 1951 professional world sprint title. Since his retirement Patterson's joviality and passion for cycling has never ceased - there's barely a track meeting in Melbourne where he is not seen, recounting his encounters to both veterans and juniors.

[Bill notes: he was the working class boy whereas Russell Mockridge was the exemplar of the middle class. They had massive rivalry and the class antagonism was a featured sidelight.]

Kathy Watt (1964- )

One Olympic Gold Medal, four Commonwealth Golds - as well as a silver - and a World Championship bronze medal have made Kathy Watt Australia's most outstanding ever women's cyclist. Yet the Melbourne 33-year old seems to have made headlines more often for negative reasons than positive.

Some pundits claimed her victory in the 1992 Olympic road race at Barcelona was opportunism. They were wrong for those who followed cycling knew she was one of the genuine chances after her outstanding build-up to the Games. On the track, controversy has never seemed far away. At the 1996 Olympics, she took legal action against Lucy Tyler-Sharman to take the only available slot for the Olympic pursuit event. The fall out poured a tidal wave of pressure on both athletes - if not all Australian cyclists in Atlanta. Watt returned home with only a 4th place "failure" in the time trial.