The 110th edition of the Tour de France, a multiple-stage bicycle race steeped in history and marred by scandal, kicks off on June 29. Hundreds of thousands of fans line the streets across France and millions more watch the multi-week event on television.
Nine years before the inception of the prestigious global sporting event, the Canadian racing community was caught up in its own scandal involving the biggest names in the sport. Controversy at the inaugural Dunlop Trophy Road Race hosted in Toronto in 1894 rocked the fledgling Canadian bicycle racing community. That year, spectators lined a race course in the city’s east end to cheer on teams of cyclists in a competition that started a decades-long racing tradition — the seven foot trophy is still on display at the Royal Canadian Curling Club in Riverside.
A picture from the early days of the Dunlop Trophy Road Race.
The Athenaeum Club Team, with Thomas McCarthy in the middle, won the inaugural Dunlop Trophy in 1894.