There’s a new British cycling star appearing on the scene – and he has quite the sporting surname. Nineteen-year-old Lukas Nerurkar, a stage winner at the Baby Giro this June, is the son of Richard, Britain’s best marathon runner in the 1990s. Now 59, Richard finished fifth at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, aged 32, and his time of 2:08:36 at the London Marathon the following year remains the sixth-fastest time by a Briton. In this new ‘Meet the Maker’ series, we get to know both the sporty parent and their pro cyclist child – to assess the extent to which the maker passed on, by nature and nurture, the ingredients of success.
But first, a brief introduction: born in Wolverhampton to an Indian father and English mother, Richard was a language teacher specialising in German and Russian (he also speaks French). The multi-linguist was a late-starter in elite sport, becoming a professional runner in 1991. After
