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 !

Embarking With A Koala

If you've been following this (or my other) blog for a while, you've probably noticed that I like to tell stories about myself.  You've also probably noticed that I like to tell stories about other people, and times and places other than my own, especially if those stories have been untold or forgotten.

That is one reason why I've written posts about (or in which I mention)  Beryl Berton, Nancy Burghart, Sue Novara, Rebecca Twigg, Jeannie Longo, Paola Pezzo and other prominent female cyclists.

And, yes, this post will be about another. But it will also touch upon a topic--a nation and culture, really--I've never mentioned:  Australia.  This omission does not come from any sort of bias; it has mainly to do with the fact that I've never been anywhere near the world's smallest continent or sixth-largest country, depending on how you look at it.

Nearly everything I know about it comes from reading and chance encounters with Australians in other parts of the world, including my own home town.  One of the few things I know is that the Aussie population--about a tenth of that of the US, even though the two countries are roughly the same size--includes a disproportionate number of long-distance cyclists.  That's not so surprising when you consider Australians' affinity for sports and outdoor activities and the fact that so much of the country is undeveloped.

One of those riders was someone named Billie Samuels.  I have been trying to find some information on her, to no avail. I guess I have to look in actual book (I think I can still do that) of Australian cycling history.

I learned of her only through stumbling over the photos I've included here.  Whoever she is, I want to know more because, hey, how could you not want to learn about someone who starts a ride from Sydney to Melbourne with a koala mascot on her handlebars?

(The photos in this post come from Vintage Everyday.

Before Martina, There Was Nancy

Every once in a while, an athlete comes along who completely dominates his or her sport, at least during his or her career.  I'd say that in my lifetime, there were four such athletes:  Eddy Mercx, Martina Navratilova, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. 


(With all due respect to Lance, I think Eddy was the most dominant cyclist because he won every type of race that existed while he was competing.  Like Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain also won the Tour de France and a variety of other races.  However, they never seemed to have the same aura of invincibility Mercx had in his prime.)


Of the four, perhaps Navratilova's timing was the most fortuitous.  She came along during the 1970's, when women's sports first started to achieve anything like a wide audience, and was at her peak during the early and mid 1980's.  


Recently, I learned of another great athlete who may have been on the other side of the mirror from Navratilova.

Nancy Burghart accepting the trophy for her 1964 National Championship from USI President Otto Eisele Jr.

Nancy Burghart (now Nancy Burghart-Haviland) won eight US National Championships during the 1960's.  She was one of the most versatile riders of her time, as she also won pursuit and sprint championships.  Nearly any time she mounted a bicycle, people expected her to win, much as they did when Navratilova entered a tennis court.


Some would say that Burghart had the misfortune of racing at a time when relatively little attention was paid to cycling, and to women's sports, in the US.  However, she garnered great respect from both the men and women in her sport, and even got some overseas press, which was no small feat in the conditions I've described, and in the absence of the Internet and 24-hour news cycles. 


During Burghart's career, the traditional cycling powers of Europe and Japan did not take American racing very seriously.  However, one could argue that, even then, American female cyclists were among the world's best.  In countries like France, Italy and Japan, bicycle racing, and the media that covered it, were focused almost entirely on male racers.  This could only have stunted the development in women's racing in those countries.  On the other hand, bicycle racing in the US during the three decades after World War II was entirely an amateur affair.   Some have argued that this is a reason why male and female racers were on more or less equal footing, and may have been what allowed women's cycling to gain more prominence in the years before Greg LeMond won the Tour de France.


In my research, I found another interesting detail about Ms. Burghart:  She was born and raised in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, barely a couple hundred pedal spins from the Kissena track--or my apartment.  That track, of course, is where any number of American racers have trained as well as raced.  And it's also where the trials were held for the 1964 Olympic team.


In 1957, when she was 12 years old, she won the Girls' Midget title.  Her twin sister Melissa also competed in the race, and others Nancy rode and won.  It would have taken plenty of determination for an American boy to pursue a bicycle-racing dream at that time:  Imagine what it must have taken for two girls!


From what I've gathered, Burghart-Haviland now lives in Maine.  Given her role in cycling, and American sports generally, I am surprised she isn't better-known.