Lisette Marton, “Mademoiselle Lisette”, or Amélie le Gall”, the women’s world champion in 1896 was born in 1869, in Quintin, France.
In the early days in cycling history, the bicycle was first of all a new vechicle for the every day life, which had to be intruduced to potential costumers, and there were plety of exhibition contests. (Well, basically, all the cycling races with professional participants usually sponsored by bicycle manufactures can be considered as exhibition contest in this early period.) Lisette’s career started at this kind of events in France, but very soon she competed also abroad, like at the Royal Aquarium in London. She competed sometimes against men too.
She became world champion after defeating the Scottish rider Clara Grace in 1896. (However, before the modern way organizated sport, usually several events were promoted as “world championship”).
Mademoiselle Lisette visited the US in the last years of the 19th century, she participated races in Chicago and Winnipeg. She competed against the “Big “Five” (Lizzie Glaw, Helen Baldwin, May Allen, Tillie Anderson and Dottie Farnsworth), the stars of the female cycling competitions.
Because the invention of bicycle gave an important impetus to the emancipation movements, events with female competitions were usually about more than just being a competitions. Newspapers usually described the clothes of the competitiors, but talking about dresses and appearance wasn’t only a question of fashion. It could give practical advices and show the female cyclists as role moders to woman, who wanted to ride bicycle, but were a bit insecure and unsure, how to behave during cycling activities. According to the newspapers, Lisette never wore a dress. She disliked corsettes.
After her active years as cyclists she settled down in New Orleans, where she opened a restaurant. She died in 1918.
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