Wednesday 26 May 2010

Sports for All - Beryl Burton OBE (1937-1996)


Continuing the cycling theme today's offering should be a well known athlete, Beryl Burton. She absolutely dominated the sport winning the national pursuit champion 13 times and the road title on 12 occasions.

Moving on to time trials, the numbers go up a whole other level. She was 18 times the national 100-mile champion, 23 times the national ‘50' champion and 26 times the 25-mile champion. Burton was already in her 40s when the Road Time Trials Council introduced a national 10-mile title. Yet she also won that four times.

One of her great achievements was the 12 hour time trial.

Mrs Burton, born Beryl Charnock, came from Morley and spent the major part of her racing career with Morley Cycling Club.

Could you imagine a tennis player, footballer or snooker player with so many individual achievements within the sport being so little known in his or her own city, let alone country? Fortunately several people nominated her for the Tapestry and Morley has it's own memorial garden dedicated to her.

The embroidery was hand stitched on printed fabric by Anne Boyle.

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