Tony Marchant

Anthony John Marchant , also known as "Tippy" Marchant (born 28 August 1937) is a former Australian track cyclist who along with Ian Browne won the 2000 m tandem event at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Marchant had little formal training and only took up the sport at the age of 16 because his friends liked the sport. In 1955, Marchant shot to prominence after only two years in the sport, winning the 500 m time trial and the 5 mile event at the Junior Australian Championships. This resulted him being approached by Browne to team up in early 1956 and they promptly won the tandem event at the national championships to earn national selection. The pair were eliminated after losing their first two races but were given a reprieve when the Soviet Union pair were hospitalised in a crash and forced to withdraw. Thereafter Marchant and Browne were unbeaten and progressed to an unlikely Olympic gold. In 1957, Marchant retired to play Australian rules football, again basing his decision on his friends' interests. In 1958 he made a brief comeback as a professional, but with only sporadic success, he retired in 1961.

Early years

Marchant was born in Chelsea, Victoria, where he grew up. His father was a member of the Royal Australian Navy, who later became a bank manager. His father died when Marchant was young. This left his mother, a nurse, to raise Marchant and his four sisters and three brothers. Unlike his siblings, Marchant was interested in sport from a young age. He particularly took a liking to boxing, and won the school boxing championship at St Bede's College. In his teenage years, he fought about 25 bouts with the Chelsea Youth Club.

Marchant first teamed up with Ian Browne at the start of 1956, just ten months before the start of the Melbourne Olympics. The older Browne selected Marchant because of the pure speed that Marchant had exhibited in the past year. They were a contrasting pair. Marchant was a short man of and , For a final test run before the pair formally committed to racing together, the pair simply had a few tandem sprints around the track. The Australians made their move too early and led at the ringing of the bell at the start of the last lap, but they were overhauled well before the line as they faded in the final straight. Upon returning to his home town, he was mobbed by thousands of schoolchildren who had come to welcome him, and he was given a civic reception.

After a year away from the bike, Marchant returned to cycling and turned professional in 1958. Within a year he left for Europe with Ron Murray and Alan McLellan on the professional racing circuit. The trip was unsuccessful. The group did not take their track bikes with them, with Marchant ordering one from Italy. The equipment never arrived and he competed in Belgium and Copenhagen on borrowed bikes.

During his cycling career, Marchant had worked as an apprentice shoe cutter. After his retirement, he continued along the same line of work, spending his entire working career in the shoe industry, designing and marketing women's fashion shoes under the brand Imps and Cadets. He married in 1962 and has two children.