Graeme Obree

Graeme Obree

Graeme Obree (2008)
To person
Date of birth	11th September 1965 (age 54)
nation	United Kingdom
discipline	Street
Last updated: September 13, 2019

Graeme Obree , also Graham OBree (born September 11, 1965 in Nuneaton , England ) is a former Scottish track and road cyclist .

resume

Graeme Obree was born in Nuneaton, England, because his Scottish father was a police officer there. Shortly after Graeme was born, the family moved back to Scotland. Because of his father's occupation, he became an outsider at an early age; a role he held on to throughout his life. Cycling gave him a feeling of strength and freedom. Nevertheless, as a teenager he fell ill with severe depression and attempted suicide . When his older brother was killed in a car accident in 1994, Obree, who had since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder , was rescued from another suicide attempt.

In January 2011, Graeme Obree made his homosexuality public in order to forestall publication in a British newspaper. The fear of his homosexuality becoming known had tormented him for a long time and also played a role in his two suicide attempts in 1998 and 2001.

Obree was married with two children and the marriage is divorced.

Record performances

In 1993 and 1994, Graeme Obree set world hourly records in track cycling . In 1993 he broke the world hour record held by the Italian Francesco Moser for nine years .
In the period that followed, he also occasionally took part in international road races and especially time trial races. He also held the world record in the single pursuit and was world champion in this discipline in 1993 and 1995 . The period from 1993 to 1996 in track cycling was marked by the duel Graeme Obree against his compatriot Chris Boardman , who became world champion in 1994 and 1996.

According to a report dated May 21, 2009, Obree was planning a new world record attempt at the end of 2009 - with a ratio of 67:13 (about 30-35% higher than normal translations for such a record attempt). But he had to give up this project. In September 2013 Obree set a new world speed record with a human powered vehicle in the prone position at the World Human Speed ​​Championships in Battle Mountain ( Nevada ) on his self-made Beastie Bike with 91 km / h .

particularities

Particularly noteworthy was his special sitting position (sometimes called egg posture ), in which the arms lay completely on the chest and the entire upper body protruded forward, thus ensuring particularly good flow conditions .

Furthermore, Graeme Obree was a kind of lone fighter without a professional team in the background. For his revolutionary sitting position, he needed a new bike, which he assembled himself with the help of a bicycle mechanic friend, using, among other things, the bearing shells of a washing machine. This fits in with his unorthodox type, who often traveled to races by bike and stayed overnight in a tent.

All this combined with its excellent track quality should have been mainly responsible for the records achieved.

Rule changes

Obree's particular sitting posture gave the UCI cause for criticism and later a reason to revoke his 1993 record. Many experts criticized the fact that the UCI had resorted to flimsy arguments, especially in this case. In retrospect, it was decided that one had to be able to see the top tube between the arms and the chest at all times , which Obree had violated. Internal sources also indicated that some of the people in charge in the UCI were uncomfortable with the self-made man Obree and that they would prefer a more representative driver, e.g. B. the smart British and subsequent record holder Chris Boardman , would have had at the top.

Obree, however, did not give up and developed a new bike that met the requirements of the UCI. On this bike, the handlebars were bent extremely far forward, Obree's arms were now stretched straight forward. In 1994, one year after his first record, the new design brought him back the world record.

The fact is that after the exploding number of records between the mid and late 1990s , the UCI felt compelled to put a stop to the record hunt, also to counteract the constant technical customization. In 2000, all recent records were canceled and it was stipulated that new records would only be recognized if they were ridden with largely regular track racing bikes that had to comply with certain external characteristics. These features largely correspond to Eddy Merckx's track bike , with which he set the hour record in 1972. In May 2014, these regulations were relaxed again by the UCI, so that all bikes are now allowed that correspond to the current UCI regulations for track cycling endurance competitions. However, since Obree's material did not comply with these regulations either, his records remain null and void.

Honors

In December 2009, Obree was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame . In March 2010, he was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame . At the end of July 2011, the Graeme Obree Classic Sportive was held for the first time in Auchincruive .

filming

The autobiography of Graeme Obree was made into a film by Douglas Mackinnon under the title Flying Scotsman in 2006 .

literature

• Graeme Obree: Flying Scotsman , Covadonga Verlag , September 2006, ISBN 3-936973-24-5 [autobiography from 2003]

Web links

• Graeme Obree in the ProCyclingStats.com database
• Graeme Obree in the database of Radsportseiten.net

Individual evidence

1. ^ Graeme Obree: Flying Scotsman , Bielefeld 2006, p. 8ff.
2. ↑ Obree: "It was difficult and there were many tears" on radsport-news.com
3. ↑ Obree world record attempt in bikeradar
4. ^ Graeme Obree forced to give up world record dreams. November 18, 2009, accessed July 30, 2020 . 
5. ^ Obree sets prone cycling record . In: BBC News . September 13, 2013 ( bbc.com [accessed July 30, 2020]).
6. ↑ Rad-Sport-Technik - Aero position ( Memento from June 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ Obree Documentary Part 2 (Documentation on Graeme Obree from the 90s, English). on YouTube
8. ↑ sshf.co.uk: "Six sporting legends honored in Scottish Sports Hall of Fame" ( Memento of July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on August 25, 2010 (English)
9. ↑ Graeme Obree classic weekend on carricktoday.co.uk , accessed August 14, 2011.