Ian Browne (cyclist) - Early Years

Early Years

Browne was born in Melbourne to Linda and Alex Browne, the second of three brothers. His father was a printer and Browne took his elementary education at Chatham Public School, before moving on to Box Hill High School and later took his university education at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). While he was at university, he also worked in Sunshine as a laboratory assistant at Spaldings. At the age of 20, he graduated from RMIT and took a job at the State Electricity Commission, where he worked for over 35 years continuously since then, always riding his bicycle to work, a daily journey of around 15 km.

Browne learned to ride a bicycle at the age of four, but did not enter his first formal cycling competition until the age of 16, when he joined the Hawthorne Amateur Cycling Club. Browne made a habit of riding to training with his ordinary bike with heavy wheels to the club, carrying the lighter racing tyres on his back and changing his tyres upon his arrival. He earned extra money to fund a bicycle upgrade by working as a newspaper boy. There was little formal coaching at the club, and the cyclists learned by individual application and by watching and copying others. Browne and his club-mates raced on Saturdays and trained on Sundays.

Browne had his first success at a major competition when he won the 10 mile at his first Australian Championships in 1953. He did not team up with Tony Marchant until the start of 1956, just ten months before the start of the Melbourne Olympics. Marchant had risen to prominence by winning the 500 m time trial at the 1955 Australian Championships for juniors, prompting Browne to select him as his partner based on his raw speed. For a final test run before formally committing to racing together, the pair simply had a few tandem sprints around the track, with Browne sitting in the front seat. They were a contrasting pair; Marchant was a short man of 170 cm (5.6 ft) and 65 kg (140 lb), while Browne stood at 186 cm (6.10 ft) and 86 kg (190 lb), unusually tall for a cyclist. The pair went on to win the 2000 metre (m) tandem event at the Australian Championships in 1956, but going into the Melbourne Olympics, nobody, themselves included, regarded them as realistic medal chances. However, their mentor, former champion Billy Guyatt convinced them that they had the potential to make progress at international level.

Their training schedule consisted of individual training two or three times a week and two days a week of coordinated tandem training during the Olympic year. Marchant's main tactical responsibility was to look to the outside for impending attacks while Browne patrolled the inside. Marchant devised a signal system, such as a head bump on Browne's hip, or even a verbal shout when the opposition made a move.