Erik Friborg

Erik Friborg’s successful cycling career only lasted from 1911-12. In 1911, he won the Swedish championship in the 100 km time trial on the road and placed second in the Stockholm-Enköping–Stockholm and the Eskilstuna-Västerås-Eskilstuna races. In the following year, he placed fifth in the race round Lake Mälaren about one month before the time trial on the same course at the Olympic Games. With his team, he also won the Swedish Championship. At the Olympics, Friborg placed seventh individually, which earned him the gold medal in the team event together with Ragnar Malm, Axel Wilhelm Persson and Algot Lönn. As the best Swede individually with a time 17 minutes below Henrik Morén’s previous record, he was awarded the silver trophy donated by the town of Västerås. Later that year, he won the Zealand Tour in Denmark in record time.

In 1912, Friborg went to the United States and served in 1917-18 as an American soldier in World War I. He was naturalized in 1919 and lived in Schenectady, New York. Subsequently, he settled in France and worked as a physiotherapist in Cannes. In 1920 in Antwerpen and in 1948 in London, he was a masseur for the Swedish wrestlers at the Olympics. At the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, Friborg was deputy team leader and interpreter for the Swedish cycling team.

At the outbreak of World War II, Friborg moved to London and later to Scotland, where he was active as a tradesman. Friborg married Dorothy Helen Deason; the couple had three children. He kept the trophy awarded by Västerås in 1912 until 1955. He then donated it to the Society of Old Competition Cyclists, who decided that the trophy would be awarded to the best Swede in the road race at each Olympic Games.