Paul Sherwen

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Paul Sherwen Road cycling
Paul Sherwen (2008)
Paul Sherwen (2008)
To person
Full name John William Paul Sherwen
Date of birth June 7, 1956
date of death 2nd December 2018
nation United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
discipline Street
End of career 1985
Societies)
approx. 1972-1976
1977 		Weaver Valley Cycling Club
Athlétique Club de Boulogne-Billancourt
Last updated: March 9, 2019

John William Paul Sherwen (born June 7, 1956 in Widnes , † December 2, 2018 in Kampala ) was a British cycling commentator and former cyclist .

Athletic career

Paul Sherwen was born in Widnes, UK, and grew up in Kenya , where his father ran a fertilizer , paint and insecticide company. He began his sporting career as a swimmer ; so he finished second in the Kenyan championship for under 14s. When he was 14, the family returned to the UK and the parents divorced. Sherwen later said these childhood changes made him highly adaptable, which would have helped him later in life as a professional cyclist and sports commentator.

At 16 Sherwen began cycling in 1976, he finished at the British Championships in sixth place in the road race. Also in 1976 he won the Isle of Man International (also Manx Trophy) race, which was the most important international amateur race in Great Britain at the time. In 1977 he graduated from Manchester University with a degree in paper technology . He was invited by the Athlétique Club de Boulogne-Billancourt (ACBB) to race in France , making him one of the first Brits to race on the continent and to be called the "Foreign Legion". Seamus Elliott , Stephen Roche , Phil Anderson and Robert Millar also belonged to this "legion" of British drivers who also began their careers at ACBB as amateurs .

In 1978 Sherwen received a contract with the Fiat cycling team under sporting director Raphaël Géminiani . In 1980 he moved to La Redoute-Motobécane . Although he never became a star, but fulfilled a function as a domestics , he was important for the morale of his team, as he was open and optimistic in an environment characterized by suspicion and several languages ​​- besides English, French and Swahili - according to his future colleague in television, Phil Liggett . In 1980 he finished 11th at Milan – Sanremo and 15th at Paris – Roubaix in 1984. In 1981 he won the Tour du Hainaut Occidentale , in 1982 a stage of the Tour Méditerranéen and in 1983 a stage of 4 Jours de Dunkerque . In 1986, when he was already working as a radio reporter for Channel 4 , he won the British National Circuit Race championship , the following year he retired from his cycling career after becoming the British road racing champion.

Paul Sherwen started the Tour de France seven times and arrived in Paris five times. He, who was known for his ability to suffer especially on the mountain, was threatened with expulsion for exceeding the time limit several times. On his last tour participation in 1985 , he fell after one kilometer on the eleventh stage after trying to hold on to his jersey , his teammate Jérôme Simon , who had stumbled after a collision with another rider. Despite severe pain, he finished the stage and finished last with a gap of 63 minutes on the penultimate. Despite arriving outside the time limit, his team manager Albert Bouvet was able to convince the tour organizers to keep Sherwen in the race. He was 141st out of 144 drivers in the overall standings.

Professional

In 1986 Paul Sherwen started as a cycling commentator on Channel 4 , which became the first UK broadcaster to broadcast daily reports from the Tour de France. The initiative came from sports reporter Phil Liggett, with whom he also commented on the tour for the US broadcaster NBC and for the Australian broadcaster SBS . "Phil and Paul" formed a popular commentary team for 33 years. While Liggett was more responsible for the atmospheric commentary, Sherwen explained cycling aspects such as tactics and sometimes corrected Liggett's technical errors. The two almost never interrupted each other: when he wanted to speak, Liggett squeezed Sherwen's knee, while Sherwen raised a finger in the air. Sherwen also worked intermittently as the manager of Raleigh Banana and as the press officer for Motorola .

In 1996 Sherwen returned to Africa, settled with his family in Uganda and commuted to his cycling commitments . He leased the Busitema gold mine in the east of the country, other shareholders were Liggett and Lance Armstrong . He became chairman of the Ugandan Chamber of Mines . He was also involved in the charity Bicycles for Humanity , which works to make bicycles affordable and has built a network of 200 bike shops in Africa, and was chairman of the Ugandan Conservation Foundation for the protection of national parks and wildlife.

Sherwen died of a heart attack in Kampala in December 2018 at the age of 62 .

successes

1981
1982
1983
1987
  • United KingdomUnited Kingdom British champion - road racing

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985
Yellow jersey Vuelta a España
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia
Yellow jersey Tour de France 70 81 DNF DNF 111 - 116 141
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Teams

Web links

Commons : Paul Sherwen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e William Fotheringham: Paul Sherwen obituary. In: theguardian.com. December 12, 2018, accessed March 9, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Paul Sherwen, 62, Who Became a Voice of the Tour de France, Dies. In: The New York Times . December 6, 2018, accessed March 9, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Paul Sherwen, former British champion and the voice of cycling, this aged 62. In: telegraph.co.uk. December 3, 2018, accessed March 10, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Kieran Pender: A cult figure, Paul Sherwen brought cycling to the world. In: theguardian.com. December 3, 2018, accessed March 9, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Samuel Abbot: Remembering Paul Sherwen. In: velonews.com. December 3, 2018, accessed March 9, 2019 .


personal data
SURNAME Sherwen, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sherwen, John William Paul (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British cycling commentator and cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Widnes
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 2018
Place of death Kampala