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Julie Speight

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Julie Speight
Personal information
Full nameJulie Robyn Speight
Born (1966-10-01) 1 October 1966 (age 58)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Team information
DisciplineTrack Sprint; Criterium
RoleRider
Rider typeSprint, Track
Amateur teams
1985 Coors ClassicMcDonalds/Dia-Compe/Suntour
1993-1994Fuji World Team
Medal record
Trcak cycling]]
Representing  Australia
Commonwealth Games
Silver medal – second place 1990 Auckland Women's Sprint

Julie Robyn Speight (born 1 October 1966) is an Australian former cyclist, eight time National champion, and Australia's first female Olympic and Commonwealth Games track cyclist, competing in the women's sprint event at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics[1] and winning a silver medal in the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games.[2] At the time, she was described as 'a class above any other female rider in the country.'[3]

Biography

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Speight is the only Australian to have held both the national Road Race title and the national Track Sprint title in the same year (1983).[2]

Also in 1983, Speight- along with Michelle Robbins, Elizabeth Battle, and Paula Verral- initiated 'the first organized Australian women's tour of Europe, culminating in the 1983 World road title in Switzerland.'[4] The women self-funded their tour, with the assistance of their respective cycling clubs, as the Australian Cycling Federation refused to support any international women's racing.[4]

In 1984 Speight qualified for the inaugural Women's Road Race at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Australian cycling officials, however, later reneged by electing not to send a women's team to Los Angeles.[5] Instead, Speight was sent to the Yu King Cup Road Race in China, where she became the first Australian female cyclist to win an international race, beating several of her international opponents who went on to race in the Los Angeles Olympics later that year- the very event in which the Australian Cycling Federation disallowed Speight's entry.[5]

When Speight started competing in the early 1980s there were only two national track events in which women could enter - the Sprint, and the Scratch Race.[6] During her career, Speight lobbied for more women's events to be added as state and national titles, and was successful in her campaign to have a Points Race included in the 1990 Australian National Track Championships.[6]

Speight was coached by Ken Smith (1981-1984) and John Crouchley (1986-).[7]

In 2017 Speight was recognized for her trailblazing contribution to Australian women's cycling through her induction into the Cycling Australia Hall of Fame.[8]

Speight lives in Hobart, Tasmania, where she is on the Executive of the Tasmanian Olympic Council and also works to raise awareness of concussion related injuries, namely Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in athletes.[9]

Honours

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In 1983, Speight was awarded the Bradley Matthews Memorial Award from Randwick City Council.[10] In 1984 she received the Sydney Girls' High School Old Girls' Union's "Centenary Prize for Excellence", for meritorious completion of her Year 12 studies while simultaneously embarking on an international cycling career.[11]

In 1988 she was nominated for Australian Female Athlete of the Year by the Confederation of Australian Sports.[12] In 1989, Speight was crowned Rider of the Year at T-Town Velodrome, Trexlertown, Pennsylvania, United States,[13] the track from which she would eventually announce her retirement from racing in 1997.

In 1994, Speight was inducted into the Randwick Sporting Hall of Fame.[14] In 2017, Speight was the first female track sprinter to be inducted into the Cycling Australia Hall of Fame.[15]

Major results

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1983
1st Sprint, Australian National Track Championships
1st Road Race, Australian National Road Championships
3rd Scratch Race, Australian National Track Championships
DNF Road Race, World Road Championships, Altenrhein Switzerland
1984
1st Road Race, Yu King Cup Road Race, Taiyuan, China
1985
1st Scratch Race, Australian National Track Championships
1st Points Race, Australia Games
3rd Individual Pursuit, Australian National Track Championships
82nd Road Race, World Track Championships, Giavera del Montello, Italy
2 x Stage wins, Niagara Classic Stage Race (known from 2016 as the Steve Bauer Classic), Ontario, Canada
2nd Wheat Thins/Mayor's Cup Series, Pittsburgh, United States
1986
3rd Scratch Race, Australian National Track Championships
1988
1st Sprint, Australian National Track Championships
1st Scratch Race, Australian National Track Championships
5th Sprint, Olympic Games, Seoul
1989
8th Points Race, World Track Championships, Lyon, France
1990
1st Points Race, Australian National Track Championships
2nd Sprint, 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1990 Commonwealth Games, Auckland
3rd Sprint, Australian National Track Championships
6th Points Race, World Track Championships, Maebashi, Japan
1991
1st Sprint, Australian National Track Championships
3rd Points Race, Australian National Track Championships
3rd Mixed (Men & Women) Turkey Chase Madison, with Paul Pearson, Trexlertown, Pennsylvania, United States
1992
1st Harlem Skyscraper Classic, New York, United States
2nd Tour of Somerville, New Jersey, United States
1st Points Race, Australian National Track Championships
2nd Sprint, Australian National Track Championships
2nd Scratch Race, Australian National Track Championships
15th Points Race, World Track Championships, Valencia, Spain
1996
3rd 500m Time Trial, Australian National Track Championships

References

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  1. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Julie Speight Olympic Results". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Julie Speight". Cycling Australia.
  3. ^ "Speight Australia's First Female Cyclist". Canberra Times. 23 April 1988. p. 12.
  4. ^ a b Schofield, Ben (2020). Wheel Life 2: Cycling Recollections of the 1970s & 1980s. Australia: Ben Schofield Consultancy. p. 152. ISBN 9780646831459.
  5. ^ a b Howlett, Scott (24 February 1985). "Medal Hunter". Sun-Herald.
  6. ^ a b Setka, Dennis (2017). Australian Cycling Championships 1888-2017. Results for Track, Road, BMX, MTB, Trials & Cyclo-Cross. NSW: CycleStats. pp. 53–59. ISBN 978-0-646-96842-1.
  7. ^ Schofield, Ben (2020). Wheel Life 2: Cycling Recollections of the 1970s & 1980s. Australia: Ben Schofield Consultancy. p. 250. ISBN 9780646831459.
  8. ^ "Hall of Fame". Cycling Australia.
  9. ^ "NRL slammed over $450 000 pledge for concussion research". Sydney Morning Herald. 4 December 2019. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  10. ^ "Sporting excellence". Randwick City Council.
  11. ^ "Sydney High Old Girls' Union". Facebook. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  12. ^ "Australian Sport Awards Honour Roll 1980-2007". Confederation of Australian Sport. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  13. ^ "Rider of the Year". Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  14. ^ "Sporting Excellence". Randwick City Council. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  15. ^ "Hall of Fame". Cycling Australia. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
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