Bert Harris

Bert Harris

To person
Full name	Albert Walter Allen Harris
Nickname	The Kid, The Invincible
Date of birth	1874
date of death	April 21, 1897
nation	United Kingdom
discipline	Track cycling
Societies)
from 1891	London Polytechnic Cycling Club
Last updated: December 6, 2014

Albert Walter Allen "Bert" Harris (* 1874 in Birmingham ; † April 21, 1897 ibid) was a British track cyclist .

Bert Harris grew up within sight of the Belgrave Velodrome in Leicester, built in 1880, and began cycling at the age of 14. In 1891 he won a five-mile race in Bristol and was invited to join the London Polytechnic Cycling Club . In 1893 he set records for the three quarters of a mile and the mile. In 1894 he became a professional . Because of his childlike appearance, he was nicknamed "The Kid", but was also called "The Invincible" ("the unbeatable").

Harris became the first British professional mile champion in 1894 after training by trainer Sam Mussabini at the Herne Hill Velodrome in London . He moved to Paris and competed in track races across Europe. In 1895 he traveled to Australia to compete there too. He liked it there so much that he planned to emigrate there later. In the same year he fell in a race in Cardiff , was then passed out for two days and was unable to start for half a year. In 1896 it was so successful that this year was called "Harris Year". He beat world champion Arthur Augustus Zimmerman several times . Before a race in Bolton , he is said to have had an inkling that he was going to have an accident, after which he returned to Leicester, where he was persuaded to take part in a ten-mile race in Aston , a suburb of Birmingham, the following weekend on Easter Monday start. After four miles, Bert Harris fell, suffered severe head injuries, and died in a hospital two days later. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets in the funeral procession to the cemetery in Leicester.

Numerous rumors arose about the death of Bert Harris, who was extremely popular in Great Britain ("the David Beckham of his days"). The wheel is said to have been manipulated by Harris to cause the fall; another suspicion was that he was pushed.

In Leicester a cycle path is named after him "Bert Harris Way". At Welford Road Cemetery in Leicester, a memorial column commemorates him with the inscription: "His lamented death cut off in its prime one of the brightest and most genial spirits of cycledom." In 2007 the BBC produced a documentary about him; it turned out that the young actor who portrayed him is related to him. In 1964 the book Bert Harris of the Poly: A Cycling Legend was published .

literature

• Dick Swann: Bert Harris of the Poly: A Cycling Legend . Vance Harvey Publishing 1964.

Web links

• Bert Harris in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Leicester's celebrated cyclist: Bert Harris. BBC, May 26, 2010, accessed December 6, 2014 . 
• Matt Houlbrook: Occasional cycling: one of the brightest and most genial spirits in cycledom. The Trickster Prince, October 30, 2014, accessed December 6, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Bert Harris 1874-1897. uk.geocities.com, archived from the original on October 25, 2009 ; accessed on December 6, 2014 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bert Harris - superstar. BBC, January 19, 2007, accessed December 6, 2014 . 
3. ↑ John Bryant: 3: 59.4: The Quest to Break the Four Minute Mile. 2005, p. 52 , accessed December 7, 2014 . 
4. ↑ The Argus, June 1, 1897  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on December 6, 2014  
5. ↑ Our top 100 list of Leicestershire sporting greats: 60 - 41. (No longer available online.) Leicester Mercury, February 9, 2011, archived from the original on December 8, 2014 ; accessed on December 6, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.