Champions.
Frederick John Osmond.
Frederick John Osmond.
From a Photo. by H. J. Whitlock, Birmingham.
HIS gentleman is one of the few champions among champions of sport—one of those Ormondes of the wheel compared to whom the ordinary run of champions are second raters. Cortis was the first phenomenon of this kind produced among cyclists, and Furnivall the second—Osmond is the only other as yet. Born in 1867, Mr. Osmond began cycle-racing before he was 19, being at that time a tall, pale slip of a lad, whom few outsiders would have selected as a champion athlete. Mr. G. L. Hillier, however, can find good form no matter where hidden, persuaded him to take up racing, and with the probably unique result that at his very first race meeting the subject of our sketch won each of his races, one being a scratch race. Since that day (June 19, 1886) his mark in a handicap has been permanently fixed at scratch. In 1887 Mr. Osmond took to the tricycle and began to capture championships. At this period of his career, however, Mr. Osmond was by no means a stranger to defeat, and it is well to remember that even in the case of so exceptional a performer as he, hard work, perseverance, and occasional disappointment are the unavoidable lanes which lead to success. In 1888 he had to be content with second place in the one-mile bicycle championship—the "blue ribbon" of cycling—being beaten by Mr. Synyer. He avenged himself, however, on the following day by beating Synyer over the same distance at Aston. Championships and other scratch races fell to him, including those for each of the three great cups. In the following year he made the Brixton cup finally his own, and won the twenty-five miles bicycle championship. 1890 was a brilliant year for Mr. Osmond, albeit beginning badly with a defeat—when insufficiently trained—from his old opponent Mr. Synyer. Perhaps strung up by this, he made a clean sweep of all the bicycle championships of the year—the one, five, twenty-five, and fifty miles, to wit. In this year he also lowered the mile bicycle record to 2 minutes 2845 seconds, and made the Surrey cup finally his property. In 1890, too, he fought out the last of his contests with his most formidable antagonist, Synyer, and won. Last year, owing to a bad accident early in the season, he rode little; but won each championship and scratch race he was able to ride for, and made a series of records of an astounding character, upon the safety bicycle—one mile being covered in 2 minutes 16 seconds, and only 500 yards short of twenty-four miles in an hour, breaking all records for shorter distances on the fiery way. Mr. Osmond is an engineer by profession, and his latest records have been made upon
