From 'The Bicycle Racing Book" by William Sanders, 1979. Page one, Chapter one:
"Introduction
July began as a clear day in Montreal but then the clouds came in. By the time the riders of the 1976 Olympic Games bicycle road race had started the tenth lap of the gruelling, dangerous Mount Royal course, the rain was coming down in great slanting gray sheets, making the already treacherous turns and high-speed descents as slippery as old soap. Ten laps out of fourteen - 128 kilometers out of 180. 80 miles out of 112 - and the pack had come apart under the pressures of the rain, the constant crashes, the incredibly steep mile-and-a half (2.41 km) climb each lap, and the hammering attacks of the leaders.
Up front a little group had broken away and was steadily putting distance between themselves and the shattered pack. Bernt Johansson of Sweden, Giuseppe Martinelli of Italy, Mieczysi Nowicki of Poland, and close behind, fighting hard to join them, West German Peter Thaler and a slight, bespectacled rider in a stars-and-strips jersey whose face seemed permanently split in a grin that was now only a rictus of pain and fatigue. As the two pursuers caught the break, ABC-TV suddenly switched its coverage to the road race, and all over North America, millions of family television screens flashed the electrifying picture of the small determined figure, the star-spangled jersey now sodden with rain and sweat, the grin unbroken, up front -
- and two thousand miles away, a certain cycling journalist leaped to his feet, spilling beer and potato chips all over the living room floor, and screamed, "My God, it's George!"
George Mount, Berkeley, California, was on his way to becoming the first American to crack the top ten in Olympic road cycling. Top ten? Nobody could remember when the United States had a man in the first fifty. All over the United States bikies stared at their TV screens in gibbering disbelief.
It was finally happening. In a sport where European supremacy was just about taken for granted, the U.S. team was at last out of the cellar.
American cyclists had ben a joke in the world of international competition for more than half a century. Especially on the road, where it was widely believed and openly stated by Europeans that there was some inherent lack of moral fiber that made U.S. riders unfit for real racing, whatever they might do in those silly affairs of their own. When John Allis won a race in France in 1963 his French manager kept mumbling, "Incredible, an American," all the way home; an official in his own club asked him bluntly what sort of dope he had been on - obviously he felt that an American couldn't have won a French race without illegal stimulants of some kind. In fact the overall attitude was not unlike the arguments advanced the "prove" that black athletes were inherently unsuited to certain sports.
They weren't laughing any more...
... George Mount came streaking across the finish line in the middle of a nine-man bunch sprint to finish sixth overall and a mere 31 seconds down on the winner..."
From "Hearts of Lions", Peter Nye, page 251, detailing events in 1978;
"In major amateur European events, the powerful Mount was often at the head of the pack. Mount won two races in Italy and finished fourth in the Tour of Britain. He won a stage of France's pro-am Circuit de la Sarthe and finished first in the Tour d' Auvergne. Under revised rules governing amateurs, he won $4,000 when he captured the Apple Lap, the seventy-five-mile race through New York City's five boroughs, and set a national record for seventy-five miles on the way. At the 1979 Pan American Games in Puerto Rico, he helped power the four-man team in the 100 -kilometer (62.5 -mile) time trial to a gold medal."
Page 256:
"Since turning professional in May 1980 after President Carter's boycott kept Americans out of the Olympics, Mount had been racing in Italy on the Benotto racing team. In 1981 he entered the Italian big time when he competed in the Giro d' Itaila, the country's three-week stage race that rates second only to the Tour de France. Mount finished a respectable twenty-fifth place after working for his team leader."
Roy "a slight, bespectacled rider myself" Drinkwater Lititz, "2-cold" PA