Edward Battell

Battell worked as a servant at the British Embassy in Greece. There were objections that he and another rider, Frederick Keeping, worked for a living. That made them "not gentlemen so they could not possibly be amateurs." The historian Mike Price said: "Gentlemen were not paid so were true amateurs. Servants had to be paid and so lost any claims to being amateur. Such was the attitude of the day. Protests were overruled."[2][3]

On the 8th of April, Battell competed in his first of his three races at this Olympics, he lined up with eight other cyclist in the 100 km race, which was 300 laps are the 333 metre track, Battell was one of the seven cyclist to retire from the race which was eventually won by the Frenchman, Léon Flameng.[4] After a two day break he was back in the saddle this time competing in the time trial, this was one lap around the 333 metre track, Battell did his lap in 26.2 seconds which was just 0.2 seconds behind the 3rd place rider, another Frenchman, Paul Masson won the race in a time of 24 seconds.[5] The next day was the individual road race which was from Athens to Marathon and back again, totaling 87 km, Battell at one point was leading the race but was so exhausted he was eventually overtaken by the Greek, Aristidis Konstantinidis and German, August von Gödrich and finished in third place.[6]

• Edward Battell at the International Olympic Committee
• Edward Battell at Cycling Archives

Sporting positions
Preceded by David Rowland Francis	President of Organizing Committee for Summer Olympic Games 1908	Succeeded by Sigfrid Edström