Britain's best roadman

Britain’s finest ever result in the Olympic men’s road race came nearly 100 years ago, courtesy of the great Frank Southall. But the Londoner was left wondering whether his silver medal should actually have been gold

- James Shrubsall

While Team GB’s gold-tinted Olympic track exploits are well documented, the road race events haven’t yielded quite the same haul of metalwork.

The women have given us the most to shout about, with a gold from Nicole Cooke at Beijing in 2008, followed by Lizzie Deignan’s silver behind Marianne Vos in London 2012 — in an event that was only introduced to the Games in 1984.

In contrast the men have never tasted road race gold. Scroll back through the years (which, in four-year cycles are eaten up quickly) and you’ll find Max Sciandri’s bronze from Atlanta ’96 and, 40 years prior to that in 1956, a bronze from Alan Jackson. But you need to go all the way back to 1928 before alighting on Frank Southall’s silver medal from the Amsterdam Games — Britain’s best result in the event.

In fact, Southall —perhaps the pre-eminent rider of his day — believed, as did those around him, that he was cheated out of gold.

Great Britain had enjoyed a promising start to Olympic road racing. The first modern Olympics was held in Athens in 1896, where Edward Battell, a servant at the British Embassy in Greece, won a bronze medal.

The road race was left out of the Olympics from after that first Games until Amsterdam 1928. But in the intervening years Britain stamped its mark on other events, winning medals in the team pursuit, sprint, and time trial team events.

‘Southall margin’

When 1928 rolled around, London plasterer Southall, who rode for Norwood Paragon cycling club, was picked to lead the team for the Amsterdam Games by virtue of his ability to win events at all distances apparently at will, and by huge distances. In fact this dominance led to the pundits of the day coining the phrase ‘a Southall margin’ as a synonym for a sound thrashing being doled out.