1999: Australia Gets a New Arena for Major Cycling Events

November 28, 1999

A track cycling arena called the Dunc Gray Velodrome was formally inaugurated in Australia’s state of New South Wales. This facility is located in the community of Bass, which is 14.3 miles (23 kilometers) southwest of the Sydney central business district. The Dunc Gray Velodrome was built to serve as the cycling venue for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Those summer games were only the second to be held in Australia as well as the entire Southern Hemisphere.

The Dunc Gray Velodrome was named after a renowned Australian track cyclist. At the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Edgar Laurence “Dunc” Gray (1906-1996) became the first Australian to win a gold medal in cycling.

The first major cycling competition to be held at the Dunc Gray Velodrome took place less than three weeks after the arena had been opened to great fanfare. That competition was an official pre-Olympic test event known as the Oceania International Cycling Grand Prix. (The above photo of the Dunc Gray Velodrome was taken in 2008.)

Photo Credit: Adam.J.W.C. (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Dunc Gray Velodrome, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunc_Gray_Velodrome

Additional information on Edgar Laurence “Dunc” Gray is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunc_Gray