Lucien Michard
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men's track cycling | ||
Representing  France
|
||
| Olympic Games | ||
 |
1924 Paris | Sprint |
| World Championships | ||
|
Cologne 1927 | Sprint |
|
Budapest 1928 | Sprint |
|
Zürich 1929 | Sprint |
|
Brussels 1930 | Sprint |
 |
Copenhagen 1931 | Sprint |
|
Rome 1932 | Sprint |
|
Paris 1933 | Sprint |
Lucien Michard (born Épinay-sur-Seine, France, 17 November 1903, died 1 November 1985) was a French racing cyclist and Olympic track champion. He won four successive world championships and lost a fifth even though he crossed the line first.
He won a gold medal in the sprint at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Lucien Michard was the son of a garage owner—"a stocky, severe-looking man whose bowler hat could be spotted a mile away"—in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis He worked for his father but spent much of his time training at the Parc des Princes or the Cipale velodrome in Vincennes. He started racing in 1921, winning the Médaille competition for novices at the Vélodrome d'Hiver, "a frail and timid lad of 17...who would dominate the world scene for many years", as René de Latour described him.
He became national sprint champion at 19. In 1924 he won the Olympic sprint, beating Jaap Meijer of the Netherlands, and the world amateur championship, beating Lucien Faucheux of France. He turned professional in 1925. René de Latour wrote in Sporting Cyclist:
Michard won the world professional championship in four successive years, starting at Cologne in 1927. In fact he won five, but amid unusual circumstances. Michard beat Jef Scherens in the semi-final of the championship at Copenhagen in 1931 and reached the final against the local rider, Willy Falk Hansen. Hansen had, like Michard, won the world sprint championship and Olympic kilometre in 1928 but he was not seen as a contender against Michard.
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