23 Facts About Reg Harris

Reginald Hargreaves Harris OBE was an English track racing cyclist in the 1940s and 1950s.

Reg Harris won the world amateur sprint title in 1947, two Olympic silver medals in 1948 and the world professional title in 1949,1950,1951 and 1954.

Reg Harris left school without qualifications and his first job was as an apprentice motor mechanic in Bury, soon moving from the workshop to the salesroom.

Reg Harris's ability attracted the attention of other cyclists and Harris joined the Bury section of the Cyclists' Touring Club and then its racing offshoot, the Lancashire Road Club.

Reg Harris continued to win races and attract attention, and by the summer of 1938 was able to beat the existing British sprint champion.

Reg Harris travelled to Milan and had familiarised himself with the Velodromo Vigorelli when World War II broke out and the British team was recalled to the UK.

Reg Harris joined the 10th Hussars in the North African campaign as a tank driver but was wounded, transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps, and later invalided out of the services as medically unfit in 1943.

Reg Harris liked to joke that he was one of the few men to leave the army less fit than when he joined.

Reg Harris retained the two shorter titles in 1945 and added the half-mile on grass.

Reg Harris was invited to race in Paris in 1945 and again impressed the crowds, and he was expected to do well in the 1946 world championships in Zurich, Switzerland, only to have his chances ruined by an over-enthusiastic pre-race massage.

The cycling world expected that Reg Harris would take three titles in the 1948 Summer Olympics: the sprint, the tandem sprint and the kilometre time trial, but three months before the London Games, he broke two ribs in a road accident.

Reg Harris was named sportsman of the year by a poll in 1949, winning by 7,000 votes over the football player, Billy Liddell.

On his return from Amsterdam, Reg Harris turned professional under sponsorship of the Raleigh bicycle company.

Reg Harris was aware of his commercial attraction to race promoters and even as an amateur drove a Jaguar Mark IV.

Reg Harris dominated Raleigh's advertising for a decade and, despite coming from a sport with no great following in Britain, he was as familiar as Stanley Matthews and Stirling Moss.

Reg Harris then won a fourth and final world professional title in Cologne in 1954.

Reg Harris won the Sports Journalists' Association's accolade of Sportsman of the Year in 1950, and was runner-up in 1949 and 1951.

Reg Harris retired in 1957 to devote himself to business interests, none of which suited his tastes or abilities.

Reg Harris managed Fallowfield Stadium, renamed the Harris Stadium; he was involved in various abortive ventures associated with Raleigh; and he started a 'Reg Harris' bicycle manufacturing business in Macclesfield which lasted three years before folding.

Reg Harris then worked in sales promotion for the 'Gannex' raincoat company, before working for two plastic foam producers.

Harris's achievements are marked annually with the Reg Harris Sportive, organised by his family and friends.

In popular culture, Reg Harris is referenced in the Hancock's Half Hour episode 'The Junkman'.

Reg Harris died in Macclesfield, Cheshire, of a stroke, survived by his third wife, and was buried at St John's Church in the north Cheshire village of Chelford.