October 12, 2018 – A new animated film-in-progress about female cycling pioneer Nora Young, who was recently inducted into the Cycling Canada Hall of Fame, is looking for support from the cycling community for a crowdfunding campaign. “The film is going to be an important contribution in terms of championing women’s cycling and ensuring that women’s contributions get documented as part Canada’s early cycling history,” says filmmaker Julia Morgan, “I would love people’s support to help share Nora’s incredible story.”

Nora Young (1917-2016) rose to prominence as one of the top female road cyclists in Canada in the 1930s and 40s, where she distinguished herself in the top-level cycling races open to women of that era.

“She was amazing and had such a great spirit,” says Morgan. “She was sometimes the only woman competing at road races in the 1930s, where often she left many of her male competitors in the dust, and at the weekly women’s races at the CNE grounds, where the top-level female cyclists of the time raced, she absolutely dominated. And all of this when she was just a teenager!”

Young famously was one of the first women in Canada to compete in a track race on a modern bicycle, the main story told in Morgan’s film. “Nora and several other top female cyclists were invited to compete in a track race of their own at the start of a men’s 1936 Six-Day Race at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto,” says Morgan. “Nora was one of the first women in Canada to ride on a banked track on a modern bicycle in this epic race, and it’s going to be fantastic bringing this historic moment to life through animation. Audiences young and old are going to learn a lot about the challenges and triumphs that Nora and other female cyclists of that time experienced.”

Nora Young was a national record holder and champion (1/4-mile time trial, Dominion Championships) in her youth, among other accomplishments. She also had a distinguished cycling career in her 60s, 70s, and 80s, as a Master’s athlete, winning numerous gold medals in sprint and distance road races across Canada, the U.S., and Australia.

Sadly Young’s competitive peak in the 1930s was fifty years ahead of the inclusion of women’s cycling as an Olympic sport. “If there’d been professional sports [for women] in her day,” says cycling historian Bill Humber, “She would have been an Olympic-calibre athlete.”

Morgan’s film, Undeniably Young: Nora Young and the Six-Day Race, aims to raise $15,000 towards the finishing costs of the film. Contributions can be made here.

More information:

Pedal Magazine – Linda Jackson, Eric Wohlberg & Nora Young Inducted into Cycling Canada Hall of Fame here.
Undeniably Young: Nora Young and the Six-day Race here.
Toronto Star – Toronto’s audacious ‘girl cyclist’ left riders — and stereotypes — in the dust here.