McNamara's Century

McNanara's Century

For old Reggie McNamara, "Iron Man" of the sport, the Six-Day Bicycle Race in Manhattan last week was his tooth. A friendly, mild-mannered man with a deep scar in his right cheek, McNamara is the son of a New South Wales sheep-rancher. He and his 13 brothers and sisters all learned to ride on the same bicycle. Reggie alone took the sport seriously. He shot kangaroos, sold their skins for money to enter local races, arrived in the U. S. in 1913. By 1920 he was the greatest rider in the world, with records, most of them still unbroken, for one, five, ten, 15 and 25 miles. He has fractured his skull, broken three ribs, his arm, leg, nose and collar bone. He married his Irish nurse. Their two pretty daughters were in Madison Square Garden last week to see how their father fared.

McNamara fared well at the start. Out in front on the second day he and his partner, Dave Lands, were wildly applauded by the crowd. As the race went on team after team dropped out; only nine of the 15 starters finished. The lead changed hands so frequently that even the five judges, trying to keep track of everyone at once, often wondered who was ahead. Franco Georgetti and Torchy Peden, his big, red-headed teammate, were booed for loafing. Jolly Belgian Gerard Debaets and Bobby Thomas, a member of the U. S. bicycle team in the 1932 Olympic Games, stayed with the leaders until the sixth day when the Italian-French team of Paul Brocardo and Marcel Guimbretiere moved out in front. Daring, fast, both fine sprinters, Brocardo and Guimbretiere went into the last hour of continuous sprinting three full laps ahead. Debaets and Thomas made up one lap but that was the best that they could hope to do. First to ride around the track with the basket of flowers that goes to the winners (beside a cash prize of $5.000) were Brocardo and Guimbretiere. Loudest cheers from a heavily

Italianate crowd were for McNamara and Lands, who finished sixth. Wearing a white No. 1 on his black sweater, McNamara said he might retire in three years, at 50.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.