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August Lehr (1871 - 1921) was a German racing cyclist.

Lehr was born on 26 February 1871 in Frankfurt am Main. Lehr, who was a salesman by profession, started his career as an amateur cyclist on a penny-farthing or ordinary. From 1888 to 1894 he won seven times the German championship. In 1888, only 17 years old, Lehr won in England, in the "belly of the beast", the English championship in the ordinary category (the inofficial world championship over one english mile). In 1891 he was the best cyclist in the world according to wins accumulated. In 1893 he finally decided to change to the safety bicycle, which proofed to be a good decision because one year later he won the World Championship in Antwerp, becoming the first German world champion in track cycling. As a result of these successes Lehr received invitations to race all over Europe, that led him to a total of 260 career wins (according to other sources 227). However, his wins didn't prove enough to make a living. In 1898, he retired from his active racing career.

In 1909, the popular sports figure gave the start sign for the first Six Days of Berlin. In 1921, Lehr suffered gastrointestinal bleeding during a rowing trip on the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau, as a result of which he died a few days later.

When in 1925 the Waldstadion was constructed next to a 400 Meter velodrome in Lehr's hometown Frankfurt, the brothers Adam and Fritz von Opel financed the erection of a bronze memorial (by Emil Hub) in his honour. In 2005, during the renovation of the Waldstadions for the FIFA World Cup, the memorial was destroyed.

He died 15 July 1921 in Ludwigslust.

Literature

• Hans Borowik: 300 Rennfahrer in einem Band, Berlin 1937.
• Adolf Klimanschewsky: Der entfesselte Weltmeister, Berlin 1955.
• Helmer Boelsen: Die Geschichte der Rad-Weltmeisterschaft, Bielefeld 2007 ISBN 978-3-936973-33-4.

References

1. "August Lehr's Palmares at CyclingRanking". CyclingRanking.com.
2. Hans Borowik (1937). 300 Rennfahrer in einem Band. Berlin: Deutscher Schriftenverlag. p. 32.
3. Emil Hub auf kunst-im-oeffentlichen-raum-frankfurt.de
4. Boelsen, S. 7 (PDF; 969 kB)

v t e German Amateur National Championship, Sprint (track cycling)
1890, 1891 Alwin Vater 1892 Jean Schaaf 1893, 1894 August Lehr 1895 Thomas Schlüter 1896 Friedrich Opel 1897 August Stoffregen 1898, 1899 Paul Albert 1900, 1902 Albert Leopold 1901 Willy Kritzmann 1903 Walter Engelman 1904, 1913 Christel Rode 1905 Otto Küpferling 1906 Bruno Götze 1907–1910 Karl Neumer 1911 Otto Gosche 1912 Max Hansen 1914 Richard Gottschalk 1917, 1919, 1920 Fritz Schrefeld 1918 Arthur Hensch 1921 Johannes Drohten 1922 Walter Heidenreich 1923–1925 Paul Oszmella 1926, 1927 Mathias Engel 1928 Hans Bernhardt 1929 Fritz Fliegel 1930 Robert Trauden 1931, 1932 Hans Dasch 1933–1936 Toni Merkens 1937 Heinz Hasselberg 1938 Jean Schorn 1939 Gerhard Purann 1940, 1947 Willy Schertle 1941, 1942, 1944 Werner Bunzel 1943 Georg Voggenreiter 1948, 1949 Willy Trost 1950–1954 Werner Potzernheim 1955 Günther Ziegler 1956 Heinz Lauff 1957 Rudi Altig 1958 Sigi Walther 1959, 1960 Günter Kaslowski 1961, 1962 Ehrenfried Rudolph 1963–1965 Willi Fuggerer 1968–1971 Jürgen Barth 1972–1974, 1976 Dieter Berkmann 1975 Rainer Klenner 1977, 1979, 1983 Gerhard Scheller 1978 Dieter Giebken 1980–1982, 1984 Fredy Schmidtke 1985, 1989 Hans-Jürgen Greil 1986, 1988, 1990 Markus Nagel 1987 Frank Weber 1991 Jens Fiedler

• 1871 births
• 1921 deaths
• German cycling road race champions
• Cyclists from Frankfurt
• UCI Track Cycling World Champions (men)
• German track cyclists
• German male cyclists
• Deaths from bleeding