FROM GENTLEMEN ENTHUSIASTS TO FULL-TIME PROS
Training was considered tantamount to cheating among the earliest Olympians. Chris Sidwells traces the evolution of Games preparation over the decades
The Olympic Games is big business, and big business invests in performance. Team GB cycling received £35 million of lottery funding for the Paris Olympic cycle; its riders train and race full-time, and are supported with facilities, coaching, medical, physiological, technological and psychological services. It’s a stark contrast to the first British cyclists to compete in the Olympics, who did so because the Games were close to where they lived.
The first modern Olympics took place in Athens, Greece, in 1896. Edward Battell and Frederick Keeping were keen cyclists who worked at the British Embassy in Greece, and with only 19 competitors to race against, across seven cycling events, they both won medals: Battell a bronze in the road race and Keeping a silver in the 12-hour race.
I’ve not been able to find any information about how they trained, but it’s unlikely they did much at all. Nobody trained hard in those days, as the reports on Keeping’s silver medal event testify. It was a 12-hour track race, and out of seven starters only he and the gold medallist, Austria’s Adolf Schmal, lasted until the end. The rest dropped out before three hours, and Schmal and Keeping were reportedly in a terrible state after completing 295 and 294km respectively.
The Games remained amateur-only for the next 100 years, though the line became increasingly blurred. Early Olympians took part for the joy of it, and for a bit of healthy competition. Competing required independent means, and since most working people were poor, Olympians were mostly well-off men, with no women’s events in the first Olympics. Most of these gentlemen thought training was a dirty word, something resorted to only by moneygrasping professionals.
THE E ARLY DAYS 1896-1920
Moving into the 20th century, this attitude slowly changed, and a new breed of cyclist started competing in the Olympics. The grow th of professional cycling in mainland Europe inspired young work ing men to take up the sport, attracted by the adventure and the dosh. For example, Britain’s first cycling world champion, a pro named Jimmy Michael who won the 100km track race at the 1895 Worlds, netted £200 to £1,000 per track meeting – the latter figure equivalent to more than £150,000 today. He travelled so much there wasn’t time to train. Any boost to performance came from drugs. Doping wasn’t outlawed in cycling, and there is plent y of evidence that drugs were supplied to pro cyclists by men referred to as ‘trainers’. The trainers took a percentage of their riders’ ea
