Choppy Warburton

Choppy Warburton (2nd from left) with his protégés Arthur Linton (left), Jimmy Michael (2nd from right) and Tom Linton

James Edward "Choppy" Warburton (born November 13, 1845 in Haslingden , Lancashire , † December 18, 1897 in Wood Green ) was a British long-distance runner, cycling manager and trainer. He was notorious for his doping practices.

Youth and Runner Careers

Choppy Warburton was the oldest child of a weaver's 13 children. At the age of eight he too had to contribute to the family income by working at the “Hutch Bank Cotton Mill”. The mill owner recognized Warburton's athletic talent and began promoting him as a runner. At the age of 17 he began systematic training in medium and long distance running, but it was not until the age of 28 that he achieved national successes. As an amateur, he continued to work in the weaving mill five and a half days a week. Warburton turned pro at the age of 34 after getting married and fathering a son. During his active career, during which he also started in the USA , he won several hundred races. His greatest successes were the English championship title in 1879 over four miles, the 14-year national record over 20 miles from 1880 and his victories in matches against the then fastest American Patrick Byrnes in the early 1880s. His last Race was a veterans race on November 28, 1892, but was disqualified for having given the wrong age.

Trainer and manager

In 1877 Choppy Warburton took over the Fisher's Arms pub in Blackburn . From the beginning of the 1890s he worked as a sports manager and supervisor, so in 1893 he became the official trainer at the Machester Athletic Club . Soon he was considered a dazzling, if not notorious figure in cycling. His most popular protégés were the three racing drivers Jimmy Michael , Tom and Arthur Linton , all three of whom came from the same Welsh mining town, Aberaman . Michael became world champion of the stayers in Cologne in 1895 , and Arthur Linton won Bordeaux – Paris in 1896 . Warburton also looked after Albert Champion , who won Paris – Roubaix in 1899 and became French standing champion in 1904.

doping

Jimmy Michael and Choppy Warburton on a drawing by Toulouse-Lautrec (1896)

Warburton's success as a supervisor was attributed on the one hand to an "almost astonishing certainty in assessing the skills of a racing driver", but also to his skills as a "poisoner" of "potions" (they are said to have contained strychnine and arsenic ), which he in small black Carrying bottles. Jimmy Michael later accused Warburton of "poisoning" him; he had collapsed in a race, got back on his bike, and continued in the wrong direction. It is said to have been a different type of "doping": Michael wanted to take another manager who wanted to place him in the USA, and Warburton is said to have made him slow on purpose. Linton, on the other hand, is said to have acted strangely and had glassy eyes after his victory at Paris-Bordeaux in 1896.

All of his athletes, the Lintons, Jimmy Michael and Albert Champion died at a young age, and these deaths are still rumored to date about the extent to which doping may have played a role. Arthur Linton died on June 23, 1896, likely of typhus ; it is conceivable that his immune system was impaired by doping. His brother Tom died in Paris in 1915, also of typhus. Michael died (probably with delirium tremens ) while crossing the Atlantic on a ship. Albert Champion, who became a successful entrepreneur after his cycling career, died of a heart attack at the age of 49.

Death in london

Warburton parted ways with all of his charges. He himself suffered a cardiac arrest in 1897 at the age of 51 on the London “Wood Green” cycle track , after shortly before he had been banned from all British railways. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec depicted him on an advertisement for “Simpson” bicycle chains.

literature

• Alphonse Baugé: Le secret de "Choppy". Méthode d'Entraînement , Paris 1913
• Daniel M. Rosen: Dope: a history of Performance Enhancement in Sports From the Nineteenth Century to Today , 2008, pp. 1–21 ISBN 978-0-313-34520-3
• Gerry Moore: The Little Black Bottle. Choppy Warburton, the Question of Doping, and the Death of his Bicycle Racers , San Francisco 2011, ISBN 978-1-892495-67-9

Web links

Commons : Choppy Warburton  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• choppywarburton.co.uk
• About the seedy Choppy and his miracle potions on cycling4fans.de

References and comments

1. ↑ Warburton is said to have received his nickname Choppy (English, German = gusty) because his father or uncle, who went to sea, should have answered all questions about what it was like with "choppy".
2. ^ Daniel M. Rosen: Dope: A History of Performance Enhancement in Sports from the Nineteenth Century to Today . Praeger, Westport 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34520-3 , pp. 5 ff . (English, 251 p., limited preview in Google book search).
3. ^ Dave Day: Professionals, Amateurs and Performance. Sports coaching in England, 1789–1914 . Peter Lang, Bern 2012, ISBN 978-3-0343-0824-3 , pp. 89 .
4. ↑ `` Rad-Welt '', December 22nd, 1897
5. ↑ `` Deutsche Turn-Zeitung '', 1896, p. 680
6. ↑ bbc.co.uk: "Cheating and Drugs in Sport" accessed on October 17 (English)
7. ↑ dailypeloton.com: "The Tale of Arthur Linton" ( Memento of the original from July 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. accessed on October 17, 2010 (English) 
8. ^ Rad-Welt , December 22, 1897