Erik Pettersson (cyclist)

Erik Håkan Pettersson , also Erik Fåglum Pettersson , (born April 4, 1944 in Vårgårda ) is a former Swedish cyclist and three-time world champion.

Erik Petterson was one of four fåglum brothers as a team in the 1960s, the team time trial on the road dominated. The brothers became world champions three times in this discipline, in 1967 , 1968 and 1969 .

At the Olympic Games in 1964 , three of the brothers won bronze in the team time trial , with Sven Hamrin instead of Tomas Pettersson . Four years later, at the Games in Mexico City , Erik, Sture , Gösta and Tomas Pettersson won the silver medal in the same discipline. A few weeks later, three of them finished third in the team pursuit at the World Track Championships in Montevideo with Josef Ripfel (instead of Sture) . The brothers have also been Nordic and Swedish champions in the team time trial many times. Erik Pettersson won the individual title in road racing at the Nordic championships in 1963 and 1969. Between 1963 and 1968 he won six national titles in the team time trial, which was held in Sweden at that time in teams of three drivers and over a distance of 50 kilometers.

Erik Pettersson also achieved other individual successes: At the 1964 Summer Olympics , he was eleventh in the road race . Three times - 1967, 1968 and 1969 - he won the important Swedish race Solleröloppet . In 1968 he and his three brothers became the first team of four in the world to achieve a time of less than two hours over the 100-kilometer route.

From 1970 to 1971 he was a professional , but without making a name for himself. He could only win a road race in Italy in 1971.

The Fåglum brothers were named after a part of Vårgårda, where they grew up and started for the “Fåglums Cykelklubb”. Tomas Pettersson later, like two of his brothers (except Gösta), also adopted the surname “Fåglum”, as the name Pettersson is very common in Sweden. His 6th place in 1971 at Paris-Nice was noteworthy.

Web links

• Erik Pettersson in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Erik Pettersson in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nordisk Mesterskap. FirstCycling.com, accessed December 27, 2019 . 
2. ^ German Cycling Association of the GDR (ed.): The cyclist . No. 2/1970 . Berlin 1970, p. 7 .
3. ^ Pascal Sergent, Guy Crasset, Herve Dauchy: Wereld Encyclopedie Wielrennen . Verlag Eecloonaar, Eeklo 2001, p. 1458 (Flemish).