Audrey McElmury Made Them Possible

Today is International Women's Day.

To mark the occasion, I am going to talk about Audrey McElmury.

In one of my early posts, I wrote about Nancy Burghart. She won eight US National Championships during the 1960s. That brought her international press attention in the days before 24-hour news cycles and when the US was seen as, at best, a cycling backwater by the sports' powers in Europe and Japan.

I mention Burghart here because you might say that Audrey McElmury picked up where Burghart left off--and carried the torch to the great generation of American female cyclists that included "Miji" Reoch, Sue Novara, Sheila Young, Connie Carpenter and Rebecca Twigg.

In 1969, the year that Burghart won her final national championship, McElmury rode the World Championships in Brno, Czechoslavakia (now the Czeh Republic).  In the previous year's World Championships, held in Rome, she finished fifth in a road race that ended in a sprint.  Around the same time, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslavakia to suppress the "Prague Spring."  The 1969 World Championships would run on the anniversary of the day the tanks barreled down the streets of the Czech capital.

That day, McElmury rode both the road and track races.  She came in seventh in the 3000-meter pursuit race.  Later that day, she rode the 62-kilometer road race on her road bike, made by Johnny Berry in Manchester, UK.  She would recall the race this way:

The pavement was somewhat chewed up from the tank treads.  The course was one that suited my riding: I was good in the hills* and time-trialed well.m On about the third lap, it started pouring buckets.  On the fourth lap, I got away on the hill by about 15 seconds, but I fell down while putting on the brakes in a corner on the descent.  The pack caught me as I got up.  The rain was chilly enough that I didn't feel the full effect of my bruised hip, and the rain exaggerated the amount of blood from a cut on my elbow.  I chased the pack with an ambulance following me to see if I was all right.

Being the tough customer she was, McElmury gained on the rest of the pack during the last lap and pulled ahead on the last hill.  She finished that race one minute and ten seconds ahead of the runner-up, Bernadette Swinnerton of the UK.

Audrey McElmury on the podium in Czechoslavakia, 1969.

McElmury's victory gave her the gold medal--and World Championship--for the road race.  In winning, she became the first American World Champion in cycling since Frank Kramer took the professional sprint race in 1912--31 years before McElmury was born.  In fact, it was the first road racing world championship victory, ever, by any American of any gender.  

To say that her triumph was unexpected was an understatement.  The awards ceremony had to be delayed by half an hour as officials searched for a recording of the Star Spangled Banner to play. She returned home to the same indifference she, and other cyclists, had previously met in the US.   A reporter, who apparently knew nothing about cycling, wanted to know more about the anniversary of the Russian invasion than her championship.

That indifference toward cyclists was compounded by the fact that she was a woman in a male-dominated sport.  She had to pay all of her own expenses--about $10,000--to compete in Brno.  The American cycling federation claimed that it didn't have enough money to pay for her, or the other two women accompanied her, because the dues they paid amounted to so little.  

Audrey McElmury's Johnny Berry bike.

On the other hand, her victory was celebrated in Europe.  For one thing, there was a culture of cycling and a fanbase for racing that simply didn't exist in the US at that time, so Europeans appreciated her determination, courage and skill.  And the Czechs, after their experiences, cheered for Americans in the races and were more than enthusiastic about McElmury.  They booed the Russians who won other events.  

She would be recruited by the Italian team, for whom she would ride and later coach.  Upon returning to the US, she still couldn't get her expenses covered, even though she showed she could hold her own with the top American men in the criterium circuit. 

After a 1974 crash, McElmury retired from racing and, with her husband Michael Levonas, coahed cyclists and tri-athletes in Southern California before working in hotel and food service management in the western US.  She died in Bozeman, Montana on 26 March 2013, at age 70.  In 1989, she was enshrined in the United States Biycling Hall of Fame.

So, for International Women's Day, I have taken the opportunity to celebrate Audrey McElmury, who helped to usher in the generation of Americans who would dominate the world of women's bicycle racing--and, I would argue, paved the way for American men like Greg LeMond, who would garner far more attention--and money.

*-Having cycled in and around Prague, I can attest that there are hills in that part of the world !