Alan Bannister was the national tandem champion, with fellow Manchester Wheelers rider, Reg Harris, in 1947 and 1948. The pair went to the London Olympics confident of a medal, and came away with a silver. Two weeks after the Olympics, Bannister was deprived of a further medal at the World Sprint Championships in Amsterdam, when beaten by teammate Harris in the bronze-medal race, after both were eliminated in the semi-finals. Bannister won the national tandem title on three more occasions, 1949-51, with Len Jackson, and added a sixth in 1952 with Les Wilson, with whom he finished fifth in that year’s Olympics. Bannister won the coveted Muratti Cup in 1948 and 1950.
Great Britain