Karl Barton

Karl Barton started racing with the Coventry Road Club as a 14-year-old and captured the 1954 National Junior Sprint Championship, just one month before his 17th birthday. Barton was selected for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff and won the sprint silver medal. That year, he also reached the quarter-final of the World Championships in Paris.

Selected for the 1960 Roma Olympics, Barton was eliminated in the first round of the sprint and was 17th out of 25 in the 1,000 metres time trial. A second Commonwealth Gams silver followed at Perth in 1962 and Barton made his second Olympic appearance at Tokyo in 1964, but was eliminated in the second round of his sprint heat by the eventual bronze medallist Daniel Morelon of France. Riding with Christopher Church, Barton was also eliminated in the tandem sprint

At the National Sprint Championships, Barton finished third in 1960 and 1961, but won the title three years in succession, 1962-64, thus ending Lloyd Binch’s seven-year reign as champion. A former aeronautical engineer, Barton later became a products development manager for Raleigh Cycles, and in 1970 was coach and advisor to the England cycling team at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games.