Dave Marsh

Although he competed in the road race at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, the highlight of Dave Marsh’s career came in between those two appearances, when he won the Amateur World Road Race Championship on home soil in 1922. The 100-mile race set off from New Brighton in Merseyside and raced along Shropshire roads before finishing at Shawbury, near Shrewsbury. Marsh, who finished 12th in the first official UCI World Championship in Denmark the previous year, headed home a British 1-2-3 with Bill Burkill second and Charlie Davey third. Only one other Briton won the Amateur World Road Race title, and that was Graham Webb in 1967.

Marsh appeared in just one more World Championship, in 1925, when he hoped to retain his title, but finished 25th, and more than half-an-hour behind the winner Libero Ferrario of Italy. Marsh’s only other performance of note was in breaking the 50-mile tandem record of 1-54:0 in 1921 with F. H. Dredge, who finished fifth behind Marsh at the 1922 World Championship. Marsh later spent 16 years with Shaftesbury CC and served them as a vice-president for 10 years.