Paul Mündner

Paul Mündner

To person
Nickname	Paule
Date of birth	November 27, 1872
date of death	after 1902
nation	Germany
discipline	Road cycling , track cycling
Societies)
	RV sport
Most important successes
National championships 1895: German champion in the standing race

Paul Mündner

The first six of the long-distance journey Vienna-Berlin 1893, v. l. to right: Mündner (6th), C. Andersen (4th), Georg Sorge (2nd), Josef Fischer (1st), Franz Gerger (3rd), Max Reheis (5th)

Paul Mündner (born November 27, 1872 in Fraustadt , Posen Province (Wschowa, Poland ); † after 1902) was a German cyclist and circus performer.

Cycling career

In 1893 Paul Mündner, a member of the Berlin RV Sport club , won the Maastricht - Nijmegen -Maastricht race. In the same year he started the distance bike ride Vienna – Berlin and finished sixth. He then became a professional cyclist and switched to the track . In 1895 he won the title of German champion in the standing race . On July 13 of the same year, Mündner drove a race against the Belgian Hélène Dutrieu , which he won, but was then full of praise for his opponent. According to other sources, he let his opponent win out of courtesy. In 1896 he was runner-up European champion of the standing, behind the French Lucien Lesna and in 1896 third in the German championship. He was also a popular tandem driver, with August Habich and Emanuel Kudela , among others . He was also active as a speed skater .

“Paule” Mündner, who raced in western countries as well as in Russia , was a crowd favorite in Berlin. He was known for his humor, but also for his fashionable clothes, "dashing from the top of the hat down to the tips of the patent leather boots". He was also picky about his sports jerseys, because "his sweaters were always characterized by accuracy and tasteful colors, and no other racing driver had such an elegant hip scarf made of heavy silk with a giant golden monogram as he". He ended his cycling career at the beginning of 1905.

His brother Otto was also a well-known racing cyclist, for whom Paul Mündner acted as a pacemaker in road races .

In the circus

In 1902 Mündner ended his career as a competitive athlete and went to the circus as an artist: "He is the famous loop driver in the Busch Circus , who carries out the hair-raising experiment of jumping over a 30-foot-wide abyss with his bike at the end of the loop ride." Mündner sometimes jumped over not only over an "abyss", but also over six elephants. Mündner had built the elephants into the trick to vary the "loop ride", as his former cycling opponent Hélène Dutrieu in Great Britain had a patent on this trick and sued him for 32,000 marks in damages. Finally he had a serious accident at one of his performances and ended his circus career.

literature

• Kurt Graunke / Walter Lemke / Wolfgang Rupprecht: giants of the country road from then until today. History of the German professional road cyclists . Munich 1993. ISBN 3-9803273-0-2

Web links

• Paul Mündner in the Radsportseiten.net database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Borowik : 300 racing drivers in one volume . Deutscher Schriftenverlag, Berlin 1937, p. 38 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Walter Euhus , Michael Mertins: "The incredible thing is event". In: The bone shaker. Magazine for lovers of historic bicycles . Issue 42. 1/2008. Pp. 7-8
3. ↑ ^{a b} Sport-Album der Rad-Welt 1903, Berlin 1904. P. 64–65
4. ↑ Interest group for cycling (ed.): The cycling . No. 19/20/1948 . Sportdienst Verlag Zademack and Noster, Cologne, p. 2 .
5. ↑ circusmuseum.nl ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2014 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.