Maurice Schilles

Maurice Schilles

Maurice Schilles (left) with his opponents Karl Neumer (center) and the eventual world champion William Bailey before the start of the 1909 World Championship race
To person
Date of birth	February 26, 1888
date of death	December 24, 1957
nation	France
discipline	Track cycling, road cycling
Most important successes
1908: Olympic champion in tandem
Last updated: January 19, 2020

Maurice Schilles (born February 26, 1888 in Puteaux , Hauts-de-Seine , † December 24, 1957 in Suresnes , Hauts-de-Seine ) was a French cyclist who was successful over several distances in track cycling at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London participated.

Career

Maurice Schilles won the gold medal over 2000 meters in the tandem race together with his partner André Auffray at the competitions there in London , which was generally surprising, because both were individually excellent sprinters, but had never competed together before. It was the only gold medal for the French team at the London Olympics.

The French sprint champion at the time was also a finalist in the 1000 meter race, which was not counted because the time limit of 105 seconds was exceeded. Despite the short distance, this race was marked by tire damage to some of the favorites, so that exceeding the time limit can be explained by unexpected handicaps. According to the official report, Schilles is said to have won the race by a few inches .

He also took part in the competition over 660  yards , but where he was eliminated in the first round - as well as with the entire French team in the team pursuit . At the UCI rail world championships in 1909 in Ordrup near Copenhagen , he was third in the air race over 2000 meters.

Unlike many other athletes of his generation, Schilles survived the First World War and switched to the professional camp in 1919. There he drove successfully until 1928, became French sprint champion in 1923 and even won the well-known sprint competition Grand Prix de Paris in 1924 and 1925 even in his mid-30s. In the year of his professional departure, he was third at the national championships.

Web links

• Profile on www.databaseolympics.com
• Maurice Schilles in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Maurice Schilles in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Single receipts

1. ^ Bill Mallon , Ian Buchanan : The 1908 Olympic Games. Results for all Competitors in all Events, with Commentary (= Results of the Early Modern Olympics. ). Mcfarland & Co Inc., Jefferson NC et al. 2000, ISBN 0-7864-0598-8 , p. 135. A protest by third-place winners, Colin Brooks and Walter Isaacs , that the French cut their way by deviating from their original line "swung away" was thrown out. Only two other protests saw the entire cycling competitions.
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 6, 2009 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.