1. Leonard "Leon" Lewis Meredith was a British track and road racing cyclist who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics, in the 1912 Summer Olympics, and in the 1920 Summer Olympics.
26 Facts About Leonard Meredith
1. 2.
Leonard Meredith won seven world championships, set up one of Britain's largest cycle-parts companies, and ran a roller skating rink and ballroom.
3.
Leonard Meredith was a mild-looking, bespectacled man who parted his hair in the centre.
4.
Leonard Meredith rode his first race in the Finchley Harriers meeting on the track at Kensal Green in north London, winning the one-mile handicap.
5.
Leonard Meredith finished 17 seconds outside the record and was cheered off the track.
6.
Leonard Meredith worked for his uncle, William Boyer, a builder with a wharf on the canal in Praed Street, Paddington.
7.
Leonard Meredith cycled all over London, visiting his uncle's building sites.
8.
When Leonard Meredith showed talent at racing, his uncle subsidised him.
9.
Leonard Meredith got back to his feet, blood running, shouted for another bike and another pacer, and finished the race 7m 19s faster than the world amateur record.
10.
Leonard Meredith became an Olympic gold medalist in the 1908 Games, held in London, on the 660-yard track at White City.
11.
Leonard Meredith rode in the team pursuit with Ernie Payne, Ben Jones and Clarence Kingsbury.
12.
Leonard Meredith was part of the team that won the silver medal in the Team road race.
13.
Leonard Meredith won seven motor world motor-paced championships, in London in 1904, Antwerp in 1905, Paris in 1907, Leipzig in 1908, Copenhagen in 1909, Rome in 1911 and Berlin in 1913.
14.
Leonard Meredith was one of the most versatile riders I ever saw, winning races from a quarter-mile to six hours.
15.
Leonard Meredith was the first rider to beat five hours for a 100-mile time trial, held out-and-home.
16.
Leonard Meredith did it on the Bath road out of London, starting in Hounslow and turning between Newbury and Hungerford.
17.
Leonard Meredith finished in 4h 52m 52s and won a gold medal put up by the magazine Cycling.
18.
In 1912, Leonard Meredith acquired the right to a patent for a racing tyre.
19.
Leonard Meredith enjoyed skating and found that one of his teachers, a man called Bain, was the brother of Joseph Bain, who ran the Constrictor Tyre Company in Nursery Lane, Forest Gate, a suburb of London.
20.
Leonard Meredith soon replaced the managing director, who had invented the Constrictor tyre.
21.
Leonard Meredith began importing more cycling parts and buying Bastide bicycles from France and hubs from BSA.
22.
Leonard Meredith then opened another in the Broadway, Cricklewood, north London.
23.
Leonard Meredith ran it with Bill Skuse, one of his pacers on the track.
24.
Leonard Meredith later planned a sporting club beside the Thames at Twickenham.
25.
Leonard Meredith's father, Charles, was a member of parliament for Willesden, an alderman of Middlesex County Council, and a magistrate.
26.
Leonard Meredith died six days before his 48th birthday while on a skiing holiday in Davos, Switzerland, of a heart attack.