CYCLING LEGEND DIED BROKE IN CHICAGO

In June 1932, a man was buried at public expense in an unmarked grave outside Chicago, because nobody came to claim the body.

Thirty-three years earlier, he had been the fastest bicycle rider in the world.

Marshall Walter Taylor got the nickname "Major" as a teenager in Indianapolis, doing trick riding outside a bike shop in a military-style uniform to pull in customers. The name stuck longer than anyone expected.

By 1898 he held the American records at seven different distances, from the quarter mile up to two miles. In August of that year, at Manhattan Beach in New York, he lowered the paced mile twice in one afternoon and left it at 1 minute 41 seconds. That mark stood for nearly three decades.

Then Montreal, August 10th, 1899. Taylor beat Tom Butler in the final of the one-mile sprint and became the professional world champion. He was 20 years old and the second Black athlete ever to win a world title in any sport, after the boxer George Dixon.

What that sentence leaves out is the cost.

Southern promoters simply refused his entries. In 1897 he was turned away at Louisville and across the whole Southern circuit, which ended his run at the national points title before it really started. Hotels threw him out, or quoted him a rate they knew he couldn't pay. Riders formed combinations on the track to box him against the rail, and in 1901 he wrote that essentially the entire American field was riding against him rather than for themselves.

At a race in Taunton, Massachusetts in September 1897, a rider named W.E. Becker finished third behind him, rode up, dragged him off his bike, and choked him until the police pulled him off. Taylor was unconscious for about a quarter of an hour. The officials ordered the race rerun, but he was in no condition to start it.

Becker was fined 50 dollars. Other white riders chipped in to help him pay it.

Taylor was a devout Baptist and wouldn't race on Sundays, which cost him real money and contributed to losing a disputed national championship in 1898. He held the line anyway.

He went to France in 1901 and found crowds that treated him like the star he was. He raced there again in 1902 and 1903, toured Australia and New Zealand, came back for a second European run in 1907, 1908 and 1909. Even that had limits. In a Paris hotel in 1907 he was asked to move rooms after American tourists complained about sharing the building with him.

After he retired the money went. Bad investments, illness, a marriage that ended. He self-published his autobiography in 1928 and sold copies door to door. He died on June 21st, 1932, in the charity ward of Cook County Hospital. He was 53.

In 1948, a group of former racing cyclists from the Olde Tymers Athletic Club decided that grave wasn't good enough. Frank Schwinn, of the bicycle company, paid for a proper plot and a bronze marker. On May 23rd they moved him to a better part of the same cemetery and put his name on him.

Near the end of his book, Taylor wrote that life is too short for a man to hold bitterness in his heart, and that is why he had no feeling against anybody.

He was quicker than all of them, and kinder than most.

#MajorTaylor #CyclingHistory #TrackCycling #BikeRacing

- BikePush

LOKEDI BREAKS BOSTON MARATHON COURSE RECORD, KORIR TAKES MEN'S RACE

Maddie Meyer//Getty Images

BOSTON — A rider dressed as Paul Revere eased his horse up to the Boston Marathon finish line and proclaimed, “The runners are coming.”

And down Boylston Street they came.

In record time. With a historic family first. And even “The Star-Spangled Banner” got some air time as the race and the region commemorated the 250th anniversary of the first shots fired in the American Revolution.

Sharon Lokedi of Kenya broke the Boston Marathon course record by more than 2 1/2 minutes on Monday, outkicking two-time defending champion Hellen Obiri a year after losing to her in one of the closest finishes in race history.

Fellow Kenyan John Korir recovered from a starting line fallto join his brother as a race champion — the first relatives to win the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual marathon in a history that dates to 1897.

On a day that also marked the 50th anniversary of Bob Hall’s pioneering wheelchair race, Marcel Hug of Switzerland claimed his eighth victory and Susannah Scaroni of the United States took the women’s title.

“I always feel emotional when the national anthem is played,” said Scaroni, who won in 2023 but couldn’t defend her title last year because of an injury. “And to have ours played on this amazing, historic anniversary gives me goosebumps.”

Lokedi finished in 2 hours, 17 minutes, 22 seconds to claim the $150,000 first prize and another $50,000 bonus for breaking the course record of 2:19:59 set by Buzunesh Deba in 2014. A year after sprinting to an 8 second victory, Obiri was 19 seconds back in her attempt to become the first woman to win three straight since Fatuma Roba in 1999.

“Where she passed me last year, I passed her this year,” Lokedi said with a laugh. “I didn’t even believe. I kept looking back and thinking, ‘Where is she?’ I’m just so grateful to her for pushing me all the way through.”

Six months after winning on Chicago’s flatter course, Korir finished in 2:04:45 — the second-fastest winning time in Boston history as the runners took advantage of perfect marathon weather to conquer the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston’s Copley Square.

And he did it despite getting tripped up from behind near the start and falling. He got up to rejoin the lead pack at the rear.

“What came to my mind was should I stay down, or should I (get) up and go?” he said. “Something told me to (get) up and go, and that everything will be OK. … And everything went away.”

Korir’s race bib fell off and he tucked it into his running tights, pulling it out as he sprinted to the finish line. Waiting to congratulate him: 2012 Boston winner Wesley Korir, his older brother.

Although the race has been won by a pair of unrelated John Kelleys and two different Robert Cheruiyots, the Korirs are the first brothers to have won.

“He explained to be tough and believe in yourself,” said John Korir, who finished fourth and ninth in his two previous Boston attempts. “So I believed in myself and I followed his advice.”

Conner Mantz of Provo, Utah, finished fourth after losing a three-way sprint to the finish with Alphonce Felix Simbu of Tanzania, who finished second, and Cybrian Kotut of Kenya, who was third.

Yalemzerf Yehualaw of Ethiopia was third in the women’s race. Jess McClain of Phoenix was the top American, in seventh place; 2018 winner Des Linden, who had announced she would retire from competitive running, won the masters division and was 17th overall.

When she crossed the finish line, the other American women bowed to her in tribute.

A field of 30,000 left Hopkinton on Monday morning for Boston’s Back Bay, where riders in Revolutionary War garb — accompanied by a fife and drum playing “Yankee Doodle” — rode down Boylston Street in a reenactment of Paul Revere’s ride.

The ceremony came to a temporary halt when the horse was spooked by the finish line decal on the street and pulled up. The actor portraying the colonial silversmith and patriot had to hop off and walk the last few steps himself as the small early crowd laughed and clapped.

- Jimmy Golen, Associated Press