Gordon Singleton

First Canadian to win a World Cycling Championship 1982

Gordon Singleton C.M. (born 9 August 1956) is a past world-record holding Canadian cyclist. In 1982, he became the first Canadian cyclist to win a world championship, and he was the first, and only, cyclist in history to simultaneously hold world records in all three of cycling's sprint races: the 200m, 500m and 1000m distances. An Olympic racer, he was deprived of competing in the 1980 Olympics at the peak of his career by Canada's boycott of those games in Moscow.

Singleton entered cycling at the age of 17 in 1974, when he raced for the St. Catharine's cycling club. His first race was the Ontario Junior sprint championship, in which he won a Gold Medal. Later that year he would compete in the Canadian Junior Nationals, where he captured a silver medal. The following year, Singleton would graduate to the elite men's circuit. Realizing early in his ambition to become an international sprint cyclist. Gordon ventured over to the U.K. where he settled in Liverpool. It was in Harry Quinn's bike shop that he met his eventual coach and mentor. Mr. Eddie Soens. The relationship was a winning combination.

In his first year racing on the elite circuit, after spending a single season on the juniors, Singleton won the Canadian men’s sprint championship in Calgary 1975. It would be the first of 11 National titles Singleton would win at the Canadian Cycling Championships. Later that year he represented Canada at his first World Championship in Liege, Belgium. Although he did not finish in a medal position, Singleton, along with road cyclist Jocelyn Lovell, led a Canadian surge onto the cycling stage in the 1970s and 1980s. Also in 1975, Singleton would represent Canada in his first of two Pan American Games, although a crash in training prior to competition prevented him from competing for a medal.

Singleton would represent Canada in the 1976 Olympic Games on his home turf in Montreal, Canada, at only 19 years of age. Although he did not reach the medal round, he became the first Canadian sprinter to reach the 1/8 round in the 1000 meter sprint. He would continue to rise in the international rankings, and would again represent Canada in 1978, this time at the Commonwealth Games, which took place in Edmonton. For the first time in his career, Singleton would win a medal in international competition, when he took home the bronze in the 1000 meter Time Trial. He would follow that up when he teamed up with Jocelyn Lovell in the Tandem Sprint, and the pair took home the Gold. By 1979, Singleton had risen to be one of the top three sprint racers in the world, and he would remain in the top 3 through 1982. That year he won his first medal at the world level, a silver in the 1000 meters, at the World Championships in Amersterdam. Singleton would also compete at the Pan American Games in 1979 in Puerto Rico, where he would win double gold, in the 1000 meter Time Trial and the Match Sprint.