Nicola Rutzou
Hubert Opperman, affectionately known as Oppy to his fans, was nothing short of legendary. In 1993, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame fittingly declared him a ‘Legend of Australian Sport’.
Cyclist, Air Force administrator, politician, and diplomat Oppy, who died in 1996 at the age of 91, left an amazing legacy.
Many of us have undoubtedly heard of Oppy because each year, the AusCycling Cyclist of the Year receives the prestigious Oppy Medal and the Sir Hubert Opperman Trophy, but you may not know much about the legendary man.
His love for competitive cycling began in 1921 at the age of 17, when he came third in a cycling race and won a racing bike from Malvern Star Cycles, a cycle shop in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern. The shop owner, Bruce Small, was so impressed that he offered Opperman a job.
He went on to win countless races and break dozens of records in Australia and Europe. At 20 years of age, in 1924, he was the Australian road cycling champion and won again in 1926, 1927, and 1929.
In 1928, he won the prestigious Bol d’Or 24-hour classic at a 500m velodrome in Paris. This feat is astounding because he completed it on an old bike after his race bikes were sabotaged by the chains being filed down. He won the race by 30 minutes to the cheers of 50,000 French fans yelling “allez Oppy” (Go Oppy).
In the same year, he was voted Europe’s most popular sportsman by more than 500,000 French sporting journal L’Auto readers.
His popularity in France was further elevated in 1931 when he won the nonstop Paris-Brest-Paris tour (726 miles/1162km), breaking all previous records over the distance in 49 hours 23 minutes.
He also captained the Australian teams in the Tour de France in 1928 and 1931, finishing 18th and 12th respectively.
His cycling career ended with World War II, when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force and rose to the rank of Flight Lieutenant.
After the war, Opperman joined the Liberal Party of Australia and was elected to the Parliament of Australia for the Victorian electorate of Corio, Geelong, in 1949. He served in parliament for 17 years under Prime Ministers Sir Robert Menzies and Harold Holt. After he retired from politics in 1967, he was appointed Australia’s first High Commissioner to Malta, which he performed for five years.
He continued riding bikes until his 90th birthday when his wife insisted he give it away, but he continued to ride a stationary bike. After suffering a heart attack while riding his stationary bike, he died in 1996.
