Ralph Mecredy

Ralph Mecredy, like his father Richard - the man who invented bicycle polo - was also a leading Irish cyclist and held several records including the Irish 24-hour record. He was also the first man to complete 300 miles in one day on Irish roads. Ralph was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and during his time there he excelled at both cycling and track and field. A one-time practising Buddhist, Mecredy junior studied medicine, and after University was offered an attractive practice in India but turned it down to spend two years in the United States, at the Battle Creek Sanitorium in Michigan. However, before going to the United States, Mecredy competed in his second Olympic Games in 1912, having been in the successful cycle polo team at the 1908 Olympics. At the Stockholm Games he competed in both the team and individual cycling road race, but without success.

Mecredy returned to Britain in 1915. However, he nearly didn’t make it because he was aboard the SS Lusitania on its way from New York to Britain, when it was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the coast of Southern Ireland. Mecredy survived the sinking and went into practice in the UK. He lived and worked in Iraq and New Zealand for a while in the 1920s before returning to the UK to take up the post of Medical Health Officer in Lincolnshire.