Lone Springbok cyclist took on the world in Stockholm
LIKE many of you, I’ve followed the Cape Town Cycle Tour for decades and had three family members taking part in the event. It set me thinking about the history of road racing in South Africa and that led me to a name I didn’t know: Rudolph “Okey” Lewis (1887-1933), who excelled in cycling, boxing and skating.
Lewis was a tall Afrikaner from the Waterberg district in Limpopo who grew up in Germiston and began working as a gold miner in 1903.
He resigned nine years later, when he was chosen to represent South Africa at the 1912 Stockholm Summer Olympics.
He was then a married father of one, but little else is known about his personal life. He had apparently won a 40km race in Paarl in 1911, which made him eligible for the Olympic trials held in March 1912 over a wet 241km course.
He was the only finisher from a field of 53, making him the sole South African cyclist selected for the Games.
According to legend, he joined the team not knowing where Stockholm was, but he soon became a popular member of the 21-strong Springbok contingent.
Sad to say, cycling played a minor role in the fifth modern Olympics.
Stockholm’s only cycle track had been ripped up to make way for the main stadium and the organisers hoped to eliminate the sport entirely, to the dismay of the other cycling nations.
The Swedes eventually bowed to pressure and agreed to permit one event – a gruelling 315km individual time trial round Lake Mälaren on narrow, twisting unpaved roads that were open to routine traffic.
The Swedes selected a 12-man team who spent the winter training on special machines. Henrik Moren, their team leader, had won the Swedish championships over the same course 10 times and knew it intimately.
Starting positions were decided by lot, and the unheralded and inexperienced Lewis drew second place.
The 123 amateur competitors set off at two-minute intervals from 2am on Sunday, July 7, the earliest start in Olympic history.
There was an enormous crowd to see them off and the local police and soldiers struggled to clear a passage for the competitors. The weather was fine, but cyclists had to put up with considerable heat and choking waves of dust.
Lewis’s good draw meant that he was able to make the most of the cool morning air and the absence of dust, and he passed the first competitor, the Frenchman René Rillon, within 8km.
Thereafter he put his head down and rode his Swift cycle (a British machine built in Coventry) at a phenomenal pace, reaching the first checkpoint at 33km in 57 minutes. His speed slowed later as the heat took its toll, but he seemed set for a famous victory until he suffered a puncture some 10km from the finish.
More next week.