A retrospect on Cycling Races, Legends and Cyclist Janaki Das

    Except for the week long International Convention held at Theosophical Society in the fag end of December which played host to a few Kutcheries and Dance Dramas inclusive of canteen facilities or the local Amman Temple Adi Festival in August there were not much of events to look forward during those television less days or rather evenings at Adyar in late 1970's, thus our school Sports Day and Annual Day came into prominence, my school located on banks of Adyar river had athletic track big by any means and was also used for two bicycle races as a run up to the annual Sports Day, the slow bicycle race which had lot of fun elements became a regular event but the speed race for seniors students vanished within few years of its inception due to lot of safety concerns echoed by senior teaching staff. Keen to know more lets get rolling. 
    Cycle races have their beginnings to Western Europe and they were of many types a few noteworthy being the Criteriums,Time Trials and Stage's, the Cycling Hall of Fame mentions them as Grand Tours and One Day races which included the Classics. The Grand Tour (three week races) consisted of the most prestigious Tour de France (1903) in France, the famous Giro D'Italia (1909) in Italy and renowned Vuelta A Espana (1935) in Spain. While the single day races constituted the World Championship every year and Olympics, the classics also called Monuments contained Liege- Bastogne- Liege (1894), Paris- Roubaix (1896), Milan- San Remo (1907) and Giro Di Lombardi (1905). Nothing on racing can be complete without mentioning about the legends who pedaled these speed machines to the podium, few of them according to Cycling Hall of Fame are Gino Bartali (1935- 50,Italy), Fusto Coppi (1940-55,Italy), Jacques Anquetil (1957-67,France), Eddy Merckx (1966-76,Belgium), Bernard Hinnault (1977-86,France) and Miguel Indurain (1991-95,Spain), keeping aside the scandals and controversies which hit the cycling world on few occasions lets move forward.

   In India the history of Cycling Federation mentions about cyclist Janaki Das instrumental in bringing this sport to our country by mid 1930's and he was the lone Indian who participated in British Empire Games later called as Commonwealth Games at Sydney (1938) where he missed the medal narrowly due to injury caused during a crash, later the Indian Cycling Teams participated in World Championship (1946) at Switzerland and in London Olympics (1948). Cycling was one of the sports in the First Asian Games at New Delhi (1951), except for a brief period of stalemate Indian team participated in various international events from Bangkok Asian Games 1970 almost regularly. The first Arjuna Award for cycling was given to Amar Singh in 1975, from 1982 New Delhi Asian Games to the recently concluded 33rd Asian Cycling Championship 2013 again in New Delhi cycling as a sport has developed leaps and bounds but we still have miles and miles to go, I conclude this rhetoric remembering the contribution by Cyclist Janaki Das if not for whom many of us Indians would have been only reading about this sport, awaiting your additions. Till next time ...

At the finish of Team Time Trial on 4th December 2011 at ECR