Early Career
Born in Hanley, Staffordshire, England, West's first ride was to Danebridge, when he was 15. He went with his uncle. The following year he joined the Tunstall Wheelers, a club in the Stoke-on-Trent conglomeration of towns in Staffordshire. He won the North Staffordshire 25-mile time-trial championship when he was 16. He beat one hour for 25 miles in 1961 and won North Staffordshire championships at 10, 25, 30 and 50 miles, won the area track league and became five-mile and 4,000m pursuit champion. His first international selection was for the Olympia's Tour, the amateur tour of the Netherlands, in 1964. He was unplaced.
Read more about this topic: Les West
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)