Arthur Linton

Vincent Arthur Linton ( born November 28, 1868 in St. Michael Seavington; † July 23, 1896 in Aberdare ) was a Welsh racing cyclist.

Arthur Linton formed together with his two brothers Tom and Sam and Jimmy Michael, a group of internationally successful cyclists, who all came from the Welsh town of Aberaman. He was born still in English Seavington St. Michael, where his father ran a pub. At the beginning of the 1870s, his family moved to Wales.

Linton, who has worked 13 years as a miner, began as a teenager, to deny local bike race. In 1893 the coach Choppy Warburton, who was notorious for its doping practices, pay attention to him and his manager. 1894 Linton suggested initially the French champions Jules Dubois and lost narrowly to the Italian masters (name unknown), for which he was celebrated for his return home as Champion Cyclist of the World. Between 1894 and 1896 he also made it to five world records.

1896 Linton won the London six-day race. In the same year he won at Bordeaux - Paris, is this victory but had to share because of irregularities on both sides with Gaston Rivière. Four weeks later he competed in the 24 -hour race Bol d'Or, where he completely expended and had to give up. A little later Linton died of typhus. He is, however, than the first doping deaths in the history of cycling; his immune system to have been weakened by the ingestion of illicit funds so that his body could not counter the infection, this assumption has not been proven. However, the other protégés of Warburton, Linton's brother Tom, Albert Champion and Jimmy Michael died at a young age.

2009, a plaque was unveiled in memory of Arthur Linton at the House of Linton in Aberaman.