A Woman Who Rode 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 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.