Roger Beaufrand

Roger Beaufrand (1931)

Roger Beaufrand (born September 25, 1908 in La Garenne-Colombes , † March 14, 2007 in Béziers ) was a French cyclist . His greatest success was the 1928 Olympic victory in the sprint . In the same year he was also runner-up in this discipline in Budapest behind the Dane Willy Falck Hansen .

Athletic career

Beaufrand did his first laps on the slopes of the Vélodrome de Vincennes . His first win was in 1925 in a talent spotting competition. On August 7, 1928, at the age of less than 20, he surprised the world's elite with his Olympic victory in Amsterdam . Twice, in 1928 and 1930, he won the title in the French championships of amateur sprinters. In 1936 he finished third in the French championships. In 1928, in addition to the championship, he had also won the Grand Prix de Paris in the amateur class. At the end of the 1936 season he ended his career as a cyclist.

Professional

After his active time, Beaufrand dealt with the "fine arts"; he painted himself and for a time was director of a picture gallery in Paris . In his spare time he played chess and bridge in his adopted home Béziers in his final years .

As of April 2005, he was the oldest living gold medalist at the Olympic Games. A few weeks before his death, Jean-Claude Killy presented him with the appointment of Knight of the Legion of Honor .

Web links

• Biography at the IOC
• Roger Beaufrand in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Roger Beaufrand in the Radsportseiten.net database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pascal Sergent: Encyclopédie illustrée des coureurs Française depuis 1869 . Editions Eecloonaar, Eeklo 1998, ISBN 90-74128-15-7 , pp. 49 (French).