Louise Armaindo

Louise Armaindo, born either Louise or Louisa Brisebois or Brisbois (1861–1900), was a Canadian strongwoman, trapeze artist, competitive walker, and high-wheel cyclist. Throughout the last decades of the 19th century, she was known as "the champion female bicycle rider of the world."

Life and career Louise Armaindo was born Louise or Louisa Brisebois or Brisbois in 1861 in a small community near Montreal, Canada East. who also worked as her manager and promoter and eventually became her husband. The two met in Chicago in the late 1870s, when Armaindo was performing as a strongwoman and becoming interested in pedestrianism, competitive endurance walking. Armaindo was more successful when she raced Elsa von Blumen that same year. She won their championship race in Ridgeway Park, Philadelphia, becoming the women's champion of cycling.

Armaindo died in 1900. By the late 1930s, she was almost entirely forgotten by sports historians. : 4