Former Olympian Has Come Full Cycle : Rider From Sherman Oaks Will Carry Torch, Four Decades After Competing in Summer Games

For Hector Monsalve, then a young, top-flight cyclist, competing for Colombia at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, was the crowning moment of his athletic career.

“Being so far away on the other side of the world and seeing all those athletes from all the countries, that was impressive,” Monsalve said. “It was wonderful just to compete.”

Forty years later, Monsalve again is linked to the Olympics.

He is among those carrying the Olympic torch through the Southland this afternoon.

Monsalve, 61, will do it while riding a bicycle.

“It’s going to be very touching, very emotional,” he said.

Monsalve will carry the torch in four separate stages. He will start at noon from Dana Point with a 34.1-kilometer leg through Orange County and, after two other shorter stints, will cap his participation with a 2.3-kilometer leg scheduled to end in the early evening in Oceanside.

He was selected from more than 3,000 applicants by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and is among 400 members of the U.S. Cycling Federation taking part nationwide.

Monsalve, a Sherman Oaks resident, still competes in masters cycling events. He first heard about the torch relay last July in Nashville, Tenn., where he won the national title in the criterium in the men’s 60-and-over age group.

“One of the [USCF] people asked me if I would be interested in carrying the torch,” Monsalve said. “I said, ‘Sure.’ ”

At first, Monsalve thought he would have to hold the torch with one hand and steer the bike with the other. He then learned that the bike provided for the ride has been fitted with a torch mount. Monsalve hasn’t seen the bike, but offered his own idea of how it should have been done.

“If I had designed the adapter, I would have put it from the front axle and up through the handlebars and make it go above my head. I don’t want to set my hair on fire, you know,” he said, laughing.

Monsalve has kept a scorching riding pace for decades.

He took up cycling seriously in the 1950s in his native Bogota and was soon among the best in Colombia, where the sport is popular. And although he competed in individual road and track races, Monsalve specialized on pursuit teams. That’s how he made it to Melbourne, as a member of Colombia’s 4,000-meter team pursuit quartet.

Monsalve moved to Pennsylvania in 1957 and to Southern California a year later. He qualified for the U.S. Olympic pursuit team for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo but the International Olympic Committee ruled that Monsalve was ineligible because he had competed for another country. He took the decision hard and stopped riding for years.

In 1968, Monsalve opened Hector’s Cycle World in Sherman Oaks and ran the shop until he closed it recently. He also coached daughters Diana and Sandy and son Rick to state road and track championships in the 1970s.

Since he has resumed riding, Monsalve has done extremely well in masters competitions.

Two of his major victories came in 1991, when he was the overall champion among men 55-59 at the Senior World Games in St. George, Utah, and the national champion in the points race in the same age group.

Monsalve said he’s eager to defend the criterium title in July at the masters national championships in Santa Rosa, Calif., and is training three or four times a week. He averages 35 miles a session, mostly with roadwork on Valley streets or with sprint workouts on the Rose Bowl grounds, always accompanied by other riders.

“It’s a killer ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Monsalve said. “We go through the hills [in Glendale and Tujunga]. It’s a 45-mile loop. . . . The Rose Bowl is a fast ride--10 laps, 30 miles, basically sprints.”

His pace with the Olympic torch today will be considerably slower.

“It’s an honor,” Monsalve said. “My whole family will be there. I’m very excited about it.”