Chris Wheeler

Australian cyclist Chris Wheeler had a brief career in the 1930s, which saw him become the Victorian 100 kilometres champion. This helped to earn Wheeler a place on the Olympic team for the 1936 Berlin Games where he competed in the road race, but his time was not recorded. After the Games he stated that despite training hard, the poor performance by the Australian cyclists was down to their lack of access to modern equipment. Most of the European riders were familiar with three-speed gears, with Wheeler requesting that the Australians should use them in preparation for the now ill-fated 1940 Tokyo Olympics. Wheeler was still competing in professional events in Australia just prior to the outbreak of World War II.