Nicola Rutzou
If you live in Sydney and are interested in track cycling, then you’ve probably heard of Aussie legend Dunc Gray because our indoor velodrome memorialises him. A little aside, the existence of the velodrome is under threat after the announcement from the state government that they will no longer pay to maintain it. But that’s an aside we won’t dwell on here.
Dunc ‘Edgar’ Gray found fame as a track cyclist after he won Australia’s first Olympic gold medal in cycling at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
But much more than that achievement, Gray, who was originally from Goulburn in NSW, was Australia’s dominant cyclist on the track and road. Between 1925 and 1943, he won 20 national titles from 1,000m to 10 miles, 25 NSW state titles, and 36 club championships. On eight occasions, he was the NSW 1,000m time trial and/or the 1,000m sprint winner.
Although Gray had no coach and limited international experience, he won Australia’s first-ever Olympic cycling medal at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games, a bronze in the 1,000m time trial. He had never ridden in a time trial before the Games but was selected for the team because he had won the Australian one-mile championship. He was allocated the time trial because another rider was preferred for the sprint.
Despite suffering from illness when the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics began, Gray won Australia’s first-ever Olympic cycling gold medal in the 1,000m time trial in a world record time of 1 min 13 seconds. Gray was the only cyclist chosen in Australia’s 12-person team for Los Angeles and was entered for both the sprint and the time trial.
In his later years, Dunc devoted energy to supporting the Olympic movement, including Melbourne’s bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics and Sydney’s successful bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics. The Dunc Gray Velodrome at Bass Hill, built in Sydney’s western suburbs for the 2000 Olympics, was named after this iconic Australian cyclist.
Gray was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 as an Athlete Member for his contribution to cycling and was elevated to “Legend of Australian Sport” in 1995.
He died in 1996 at the age of 90, so he never got to see the velodrome that bore his name. Lucky, he’s not here to see the wrangles going on about its future.
