Believe it or not, but in the first half of the 20 th century, it was cyclists and not hockey players who drew crowds in Montreal. The Six-Day Race and the great Quebec-Montreal classic were the scene of their exploits. Here are three giants of Quebec cycling.

Jos Laporte, road champion

A young cycling prodigy, Jos Laporte distinguished himself at the age of 17 by being the first Canadian to qualify for the road event at the Paris Olympics in 1924. He returned 4 years later, to the Amsterdam Games. He finished 54 th and 31 st respectively.

A famous member of the Club Quilicot , he then dominated the Canadian and Quebec circuits from 1924 to 1928, being crowned Canadian road champion 7 times and Quebec road champion 6 times.

Although track racing was not his specialty, he managed to win the event in his first participation in Montreal in 1930. The following year was more arduous, as reported by the newspaper La Patrie : "What was most astonishing in the first 24 hours (...) was, without a doubt, the large number of falls by Laporte. Never have we seen a cyclist fall with such ease."

Two days later, Laporte and his teammate McNamara were back in pole position. A sign that a champion knows how to get back up!

Jules Audy, the Blonde Comet

"The young Montreal cyclist who has been racing for barely six months and has already become the most popular rider in all of America." This is how Jules Audy, also known as the Blonde Comet, was described in the newspapers of the time.

A track racing specialist, he participated in 146 Six-Day races in Canada, Europe, and the United States. He was a regular partner of the legendary "Torchy" Peden, with whom he won more races than any other Canadian track cyclist.

Spectacular and fearless, Jules Audy asked to resume the race after a bad fall in Philadelphia in 1932. Taken to the hospital, he was diagnosed with a fractured skull!

With 14 victories on the Canadian Six-Day Race circuit, Audy ranks 2 nd among the best Canadian cyclists in this event, according to a compilation by the website 6dayracing.ca.

Zénon Saint-Laurent

Zénon Saint-Laurent caught the cycling competition bug after seeing Jos Laporte return from the Paris Olympics: "I went to see him arrive at the Port of Montreal," he recounted during his induction into the Quebec Cycling Hall of Fame. "It impressed me so much that he could go on such a beautiful trip, all expenses paid and with honors too... that was the beginning of the ideal I set for myself."

Four years later, Saint-Laurent also qualified for the Olympics but could not attend due to the 1929 crisis. But that was just a postponement.

Supported by Louis Quilicot, the "Papa des cyclistes," Saint-Laurent made history by winning the first two editions of the Quebec-Montreal classic.

Afterward, he competed against oval track cyclists, participating in no less than nine Six-Day races in two years, teaming up with the best Canadian cyclists of his time: Torchy Peden and Henri Lepage. He retired in 1935, after a final race in Toronto.

Other great names

We could have mentioned Bob Lacourse, who won the prestigious Quebec-Montreal race in 1946, Henri Lepage, partner of the great Peden, or René Cyr, also a Six-Day Race champion. These are all stars who are now part of the Hall of Fame.

And all of them have in common being trained by Louis Quilicot, a true pioneer and builder of Quebec cycling.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Writer and screenwriter, a graduate of INIS, Philippe Jean Poirier has four novels to his credit, including Jos (Marchand de feuilles, 2010), a historical novel inspired by the life of the strongman Jos Montferrand. Himself possessed of a colossal physique, he is nonetheless a sensitive author whose texts read effortlessly...