Mark BELL

After success at junior level both as a road cyclist and in cyclo-cross Bell’s first year as a senior saw him take 3rd place in the British Amateur Road Race Championships and compete for his country at the World Championships in Valkenburg, Holland.

He missed selection for the Moscow Olympics but bounced back in 1981 and won both the national road race title and two stages of the Milk Race, the amateur Tour of Britain. Bell won around 200 races in his amateur career and became the first foreigner to win the Étoile de Sud stage race in Belgium but disappointed in his Olympic appearance when, affected by the heat, he dropped out before the halfway mark.

Between 1985 and 1988 he was a professional for the Raleigh team and in 1986 he won the British professional road race title when he mounted a solo attack to claim an unexpected victory. After his pro career ended he suffered from alcoholism for a number of years and was disabled by deep vein thrombosis damage to his legs. Bell was awaiting a series of operations which he hoped would enable him to cycle again when he died in early 2009.