Scott's Story
1969 –
Scott McGrory and Brett Aitken won the inaugural staging of the madison event at Sydney 2000. It was arguably the most remarkable performance against adversity of the Games and gave Australia its first track cycling gold medal since the team pursuit at Los Angeles 1984.
Aitken had abandoned his quest for gold in early 2000 when his one-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a developmental disorder. But his wife, McGrory, friends and others convinced him to continue. Ashli Aitken survived to be part of the celebrations however in another cruel twist McGrory’s infant son died 10 weeks before the Games. How they both helped each other through is quite unbelievable. McGrory also started in the road race in Sydney.
As an 18-year-old McGrory made his Olympic debut at Seoul 1988 when he rode in the preliminaries, but not the final, of the team pursuit where Brett Dutton, Wayne McCarney, Stephen McGlede and Dean Woods combined for the bronze medal behind the USSR and East Germany.
The silver medal from the madison in 2000 went to Belgium, represented by Étienne De Wilde and Matthew Gilmore. Gilmore, a promising junior cyclist in Australia, had become a highly ranked endurance rider in Europe and had considerable success in six-day events, at times with McGrory as his partner.
