With his glasses taped to his head and a heavy, bone-shaking push bike for a ride, the lanky 18-year-old seemed an unlikely prospect when he turned up for his first club cycling race. Yet, when he died 12 years later – after two Olympic and two Empire gold medals and countless world records – there was a feeling that Russell Mockridge had not yet reached his full potential.

‘Mocka’ was a freakish and courageous talent whose feats in his day were as acclaimed as other Australian sporting icons, such as Phar Lap or Don Bradman. He was also one of those rare athletes whose talents are so prodigious as to force the rules of their sport to change.

Yet, with his two feet on the pavement he was a retiring man who did not drink and was painfully shy of women. He couldn’t handle the “roughness” of most other cyclists who referred to him in his young days as “The China Doll”. For his part, Mockridge preferred to spend time with English literature and his favorites were Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Oliver Goldsmith’s classic essays.

Mockridge, known in the press as the Geelong Flyer was born on 18 July, 1928. His poor eyesight (he couldn’t see the other side of the road without glasses) barred him from most sports, particularly his beloved Australian Rules Football. Instead, he took himself for long weekend rides to go rabbit shooting. He was 18 and working as a cadet journalist on The Geelong Advertiser newspaper when he entered the weekly Geelong Amateur Cycling Club 40km road race because he was “feeling irritable in the stomach through lack of exercise”.

Club officials looked at the skinny Mockridge, at his do-it-yourself bike shoes and at his battered roadster with its handlebars turned down and wondered what they had struck. The disbelief grew when Mockridge innocently asked if it would be all right if he stayed out in front all the way – he was concerned that his poor eyesight might cause an accident and endanger other cyclists.

Any laughter died when Mockridge settled down to his machine-like rhythm and burned off other competitors. Alex McPherson, the official timing the race waved the cyclists past the halfway mark, the turning point, and hopped into his car to greet the finishers at the track. When he arrived, he found Mockridge waiting and puzzled.

McPherson and his assistant went into a huddle. “Well, you certainly won the race and probably have the fastest time but we don’t actually know what your time for the distance is, so we can’t give you that one,” McPherson told him.

The next week, racing off a smaller handicap, Mockridge again won. The third week, starting from scratch, he did it again – a cycling legend had been born. The Geelong Club quickly helped Mockridge acquire a new bike and in the next few months he won eight of his 11 starts. Understandably Mockridge was hailed as an emerging champion and his rise from club rider to state, national, Empire (as the Commonwealth Games were then called), European and Olympic champion was meteoric.

At the Australian 200km road championship, Mockridge was the sole member of the Victorian team left riding when it came down to the last few hundred meters. The pack was well ahead and beginning their final sprint while Mockridge, whose appetite was astounding, lagged behind finishing off a snack from his food bag.

His coaches and team-mates had given up as Mockridge still trailed well in the rear with 400 metres left, but once he finished the sandwich, Mockridge settled into some serious pedaling. Queenslander Ken Graves was being acclaimed the winner by announcers just as Mockridge burst through the pack and cut him down six metres from the line to win.

That performance gained him instant selection for the 1948 London Olympics, but he finished 32nd from a field of 101 after puncturing twice during the 192km road race. On his return to Australia, Mockridge concentrated on track sprints and won almost every major title during the next season.

At the 1950 Auckland Empire Games Mockridge, now known as ‘Rocket Man’ won the 1000m time trial in record-breaking time. He then defeated wily Sid Patterson, a fellow Australian and world sprint champion, in straight heats in the 1000m scratch sprint for a second gold. Mockridge then announced his retirement from cycling for “the more important things in life”. He began study at Melbourne University in preparation for the Anglican ministry, but was coaxed out of retirement a year later for the 1951 world sprint championships in Italy.

Mockridge won through to the finals against two cyclists from the host nation, Enzo Sacchi and Marino Morettini, but the Australian stood little chance against the team tactics applied by the Italians. The race was more like a two-on-one boxing match, so Mockridge challenged Sacchi, the winner, to a one-on-one race a week later in Turin. The Australian won easily.

It was during this trip that Mockridge learned of the large amounts paid to top-line cyclists and decided to eventually turn professional. To demand top dollar, he knew he would first have to become the world amateur champion. A few Olympic medals wouldn’t hurt either, so he set sights on making the Australian team for the 1952 Helsinki Games.

In the lead up to selection, he won 10 Olympic qualifying races from 10 starts in Australia and then left for Europe. On 6 July, 1952, Mockridge easily defeated his old opponent Sacchi to win the amateur Grand Prix de Paris. As was tradition, the winner of the amateur event was invited the following day to compete in the Open Grand Prix, the final of the world’s best professionals . Mockridge swept past Reg Harris of Great Britain and the French champion Bellenger in the final straight to claim victory – a double-headed feat never before been achieved. His humiliation of the professionals led to amateur riders being barred for many years.

It is now an Olympic legend that Mockridge, after arriving late at the Helsinki Games because he refused to sign a two-year amateur bond, went out and won two gold medals in one afternoon – neither in his preferred event. Mockridge won the 1000m time trial in the record time of 1min 11.1sec. He then combined with Lionel Cox, with whom he had never ridden until the week before, to take out the 2000m tandem event. Cox lost out to Sacchi in the finals of the 1000m sprint, the event Mockridge had been favorite for.

One year later, according to the terms of his finalised bond, Mockridge went pro. In Europe, he won the Tour de Vaucluse and combined with fellow Australians Sid Patterson and Roger Arnold to take out the Paris six-day race. But overall his success was limited. He was a novice lone rider fighting glandular fever and the resentment of teams of professionals that had never quite forgiven him for defeating them in the Open in 1952. He did, however, manage to complete the Tour de France (64th from 120 starters) despite a painful knee injury sustained during training.

Yet, the big money he was chasing did not come his way, so he returned home where he continued his domination of the local scene. Jack Dunn, a sports journalist, later nominated the mad final dash on the last day of the 1957 Sun Tour as one of the most memorable rides of Mockridge’s career.

Statistics show Mockridge, riding with George Goodwin, made up a 2min 4sec gap over the last 32km of the 1,760km nine-day race to win the Tour, but the statistics don’t tell the brilliance of his ride. In a desperate bid to make up the time, Mockridge threw himself into the wending steep hillsides between Cockatoo and Belgrave.

Goodwin had been told by his trainer earlier that day, “Keep your eye on Mockridge. He will have a go at getting that time back between here and the finish. It looks impossible, but I think he’ll try.” Goodwin then found himself desperately hanging onto Mockridge’s back wheel as the champion unleashed a ride that simply destroyed 28 of Australia’s best riders.

Ron Casey, a journalist covering the race for radio, said later that the press car had no problem keeping contact going up hills, but downhill was a different matter as the two riders raced helter-skelter through the bends. How fast were the pair pedaling? About 100km/h or more. In fact, they were travelling so quickly that the two police motorcycle escorts had sparks shooting up from the footrests hitting the bitumen as they negotiated the treacherous curves.

After the race Goodwin, who crossed the finish line in a final sprint just ahead of Mockridge and 3min 30sec ahead of the next rider, asked Mockridge if he had any worries speeding down the steep hills and bends. Mockridge replied, “Yes. When I saw those sparks coming up from the road as the police motorbikes zoomed around the bends in front of us, I thought they might fall off. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Mockridge then went onto win his third successive 200km professional championship in 1958, as well as the 1000m sprint and 8km pursuit titles. Stewie Doyle, an Australia cycling announcer and former club rider, once compared the demands of these different disciplines “as like Carl Lewis winning gold in the 100m sprint and then doing the same in the marathon.”

In 1958, Mockridge, then 30 and with a new world speed record to his name, decided to return to the European circuit at the head of a team of Australians to stake his claim as a true world champion. At his last race before leaving, Mockridge and five other scratchmen had just started the 224km Tour of Gippsland when a turning bus hit the group in North Clayton, near Melbourne.

"I sort of looked up and there was the bus. I had time to turn my shoulder to it as its front door hit me. But there was really no time for any thoughts, it was that quick. We never really saw it, it was just there on top of us, Russell went straight into it," recalled fellow rider Jim Taylor in 2005. Two of the riders, including Taylor, were injured. Russell Mockridge, the most versatile cyclist Australia has produced, was killed instantly.