Lloyd Binch

Before he made his Olympic début in 1960, Lloyd Binch had been a reserve for the 1952 Helsinki Games and, despite being selected for Melbourne four years later, was eventually replaced by Birmingham’s Keith Harrison.

Binch finished third on his début in the National Sprint Championship in 1951. Despite a successful 1952 season, including a seven-week tour of South Africa and Rhodesia with the NCU, an accident while competing on the Isle of Man the week before the national championship prevented him from taking part. Olympic selection was made shortly afterwards and, as Binch was still injured, he was named only as a reserve for the Helsinki Games. A few weeks after the Olympics, however, he was fit enough to take part in the World Cycling Championships at Paris.

Binch was selected for the Melbourne Olympics four years later, but a Crown Court appearance the month before the Olympics saw him imprisoned for four months and his place went to Keith Harrison. Binch was found guilty of Conspiring to Defeat the Ends of Justice (now known as Perverting the Course of Justice) and perjury. The case was brought against him and a female co-defendant after he told police he was driving a car involved in an accident six months earlier when it was the woman, with no licence or insurance, who was actually driving. She too was imprisoned for four months.

Eventually, Binch made his Olympic début in 1960 and reached the quarter-final of the 1000-metres sprint in Roma before losing to the eventual silver medallist Leo Sterckx of Belgium. Having been runner-up in the National Sprint Championship in 1953 and 1954, Binch won the first of seven consecutive titles between 1955-61. Internationally, he won a bronze medal at the 1958 Cardiff British Empire & Commonwealth Games.