CYCLING BIO
Most sporting fans can fondly remember Anna Meares winning Australia’s first-ever women’s track cycling gold medal at the Olympic Games in 2004. However, while they were taking their very first pedal strokes, Sydney’s Julie Speight was paving the way for Meares and the future of Australia’s women’s cycling during an international career that spanned three decades.
In 1976, Speight began cycling at age 10 and seven years later in 1983 at a time when just three national titles were contested for women on the track, she won the first of seven crowns. Five years later in 1988, Speight became the first woman to race for Australia at the Olympic Games in Seoul. Then in 1990, she won Australia’s first-ever women’s sprint medal at the Commonwealth Games when she took silver in Auckland.
Speight began racing in 1980 at age 15 with the Randwick Botany Cycling Club where club rider Gai Cridland first showed her the art of sitting on a wheel, and club matriarch and chief handicapper Helen Millwood gave Speight encouragement and those few seconds advantage needed to get a taste for winning.
Between 1983 and 1992, Speight claimed eight national titles on the road and track. Remarkably, Speight won both the national road race and national sprint title in 1983, while also contesting the world road championships the same year.
Speight may well have made her Olympic Games debut in 1984 in Los Angeles, however the Australian Cycling Federation chose against sending a women’s contingent to contest the first ever women’s cycling event in the Olympic program.
But it is clear that Speight’s career satisfaction goes well beyond the firsts, the honour rolls and medal tallies. Speight was a trailblazer off the bike to ensure women had more opportunities to race and ride at all levels. Speight petitioned the NSW Cycling Union to hold a women’s state championships for the team pursuit, before doing the same with the Australian Cycling Federation to include the points race as a national title for the 1990 nationals.
Speight retired from cycling in the early 1990s and later attained a scriptwriting degree and more recently has been working with Australian Immigration and Border Protection.
Major Achievements
Olympic Games
- 1988 Seoul – 5th Sprint
Commonwealth Games
- 1990 Auckland – silver Sprint
National champion
- Sprint 1983, 88, 91
- Scratch 1985, 88
- Points Race 1990, 92
- Road Race 1983
