Reg Harris
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Harris at the 1948 Olympic Games
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| Full name | Reginald Hargreaves Harris | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
1 March 1920 Birtle, Bury, Lancashire, England |
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| Died | 22 June 1992 (aged 72) Macclesfield, Cheshire, England |
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| Discipline | Track | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1934 | Cyclists' Touring Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| – | Lancashire Road Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| – | Manchester Wheelers' Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Professional team(s) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1952–1955 | Raleigh Cycles-Dunlop | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1957 | Raleigh Cycles-Dunlop | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1971 | TI-Carlton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1972 | Falcon-Tighe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1975 | Draka Foam | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Reginald Hargreaves Harris OBE (1 March 1920 – 22 June 1992) was a British track racing cyclist in the 1940s and 1950s. He won the world amateur sprint title in 1947, two Olympic silver medals in 1948, and the professional title in 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1954. His ferocious will to win made him a household name in the 1950s, but he also surprised many with a comeback more than 20 years later, winning a British title in 1974 at the age of 54.
Harris was born as Reginald Hargreaves at 7 Garden Street, Birtle, Bury, Lancashire, the son of a musician who died when he was six. His mother, Elsie Hargreaves, a cotton weaver, remarried and Reginald took the name of his stepfather, an engineer and businessman called Joseph Harris.
Reg Harris left school without qualifications and his first job was as an apprentice motor mechanic in Bury, soon moving from the workshop to the salesroom. During this period, at the age of 14, he bought his first bicycle, and entered a roller-racing competition organised by the Hercules bicycle manufacturing company.
His ability attracted the attention of other cyclists and Harris joined the Bury section of the Cyclists' Touring Club and then its racing offshoot, the Lancashire Road Club,. In 1935, he won his first race, a half-mile handicap event held on a grass track in Bury, and also started competing in individual time trials.
Harris moved from the motor mechanics job to a slipper factory, then, in early 1936, to a paper mill which he felt would pay him enough in the winter to spend the summer training and competing. During 1936, he raced on grass tracks in Lincolnshire, then competed in and won his first events in conventional competition at Fallowfield Stadium in Fallowfield, Manchester.
In early 1937, he was confident he could support himself as an athlete, selling the prizes he won as an amateur, and left the paper mill to focus on the summer cycle racing season, returning to the mill the following winter (repeating the process the following year). He continued to win races and attract attention, and by the summer of 1938 was able to beat the existing British sprint champion. At the end of that season, he joined Manchester Wheelers' Club, and in 1939 won a major race in Coventry, leading to his selection for the world championship in Milan, Italy. He travelled to Milan and had familiarised himself with the Velodromo Vigorelli when World War II broke out and the British team was recalled to the UK.
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