Nile Wilson is one of Great Britain's most successful gymnasts of all time. He won Britain's first ever Olympic medal on the High Bar with a bronze in at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He is also England's most successful ever gymnast at the Commonwealth Games, with a total medal haul of five golds, three silvers and a bronze. Yet Nile is so much more than just a gymnast. An online content creator, an entrepreneur, a successful businessman and an advocate for mental health awareness. Nile Wilson - My Story gives an unprecedented look into Nile's entire journey in and out of gymnastics. People often presume to know so much about Nile due to his huge online audience, but this book will shatter that perception. Nile talks through how he rapidly rose to gymnastics stardom; his views on gymnastics coaching; the enormous battles he faced with injury that eventually forced him into retirement; his battles with gambling and mental health issues; his family; and how he successfully moved into business. Importantly, he finally lifts the lid on the true details behind the fall out with Leeds Gymnastics Club and British Gymnastics, and how the future of the sport needs to be shaped. No stone is left unturned.

Located in the United States, NBC (National Broadcasting Company) is the biggest and most powerful Olympic network in the world, having won the rights to televise both the Summer and the Winter Olympic Games. By way of attracting more viewers of both sexes and all ages and ethnicities than any other sporting event, and through the production of breathtaking spectacles and absorbing stories, NBC's Olympic telecasts have huge power and potential to shape viewer perceptions. Billings's unique text examines the production, content, and potential effects of NBC's Olympic telecasts. Interviews with key NBC Olympic producers and sportscasters (including NBC Universal Sports and Olympics President Dick Ebersol and primetime anchor Bob Costas) outline the inner workings of the NBC Olympic machine; content analyses from ten years of Olympic telecasts (1996-2006) examine the portrayal of nationality, gender, and ethnicity within NBC's telecast; and survey analyses interrogate the extent to which NBC's storytelling process affects viewer beliefs about identity issues. This mixed-method approach offers valuable insights into what Billings portrays as "the biggest show on television".

"In her excellent new book, Amy Bass uses the famous 'black power' podium salute by sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith as the centerpiece of her expansive examination of the black athlete in America." -Boston Globe

"Amy Bass's powerful and nuanced account of the Olympic Project for Human Rights gives us the story behind this picture-a story that will change our conception of the history of sport and racial politics." -Robin D. G. Kelley

"Beautifully written, as well as appropriately complex and wide-ranging. As much as sports might appear to be a straight-ahead business, where the 'best' might be rightly rewarded, Bass deftly reveals the difficulties of maintaining a sense of self, collective consciousness, and political urgency." -Philadelphia City Paper

"Amy Bass sorts through the events and perceptions linked to some of the biggest names and moments in sports history and assesses their meaning beyond the playing field." -Bob Costas

Amy Bass is assistant professor of history at the College of New Rochelle and is a member of the NBC research team covering the Olympic Games including Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Salt Lake 2002, and Athens 2004.

The Beijing Olympics will be remembered as the largest, most expensive, and most widely watched event of the modern Olympic era. But did China present itself as a responsible host and an emergent international power, much like Japan during the 1964 Tokyo Games and Korea during the 1988 Seoul Games? Or was Beijing in 2008 more like Berlin in 1936, when Germany took advantage of the global spotlight to promote its political ideology at home and abroad?

"Beyond the Final Score" is one of the first books to look at the 2008 Beijing games within the context of the politics of sport in Asia. Asian athletics are bound up with notions of national identity and nationalism, refracting political intent and the process of globalization. Sporting events can generate diplomatic breakthroughs (as with the results of Nixon and Mao's "ping-pong diplomacy") or breakdowns (as when an athlete defects to another country). For China, the Beijing Games introduced a liberalizing ethos that its authoritative regime could ignore only at its peril. Victor D. Cha& mdash;former director of Asian affairs for the White House& mdash;evaluates Beijing's contention with this pressure considering the intense scrutiny China already faced on issues of counterproliferation, global warming, and free trade. He begins with the theoretical arguments tying Asian sport to international affairs and follows with an explanation of athletics as they relate to identity, diplomacy, and transformation. Enhanced by Cha's remarkable facility with the history and politics of sport, "Beyond the Final Score" is the definitive examination of the significance of events& mdash;both good and bad& mdash;that took place during the BeijingOlympics.

For two weeks in August 1936, Nazi Germany achieved an astonishing propaganda coup when it staged the Olympic Games in Berlin. Hiding their anti-Semitism and plans for territorial expansion, the Nazis exploited the Olympic ideal, dazzling visiting spectators and journalists alike with an image of a tolerant country. Thousands of foreigners went away wondering why the Hitler regime had been vilified, unaware that not far from the stunning Olympic Stadium lay a concentration camp full of 'enemies of the state'. In Hitler's Olympics, Anton Rippon tells the story of those remarkable Games, the first to overtly use the Olympic festival for political purposes. His account looks at how the rise of the Nazis affected German sportsmen and women in the early 1930s. And it reveals how the rest of the world allowed the Berlin Olympics to go ahead despite the knowledge that Nazi Germany was a police state.The Nazis threw all their resources into staging the most remarkable Olympics seen so far. Hitler was closely involved in the grandiose planning of an event that was designed to glorify the new Nazi state, and this book describes the process in fascinating detail. The political drama of the event is matched by the intense competition of the athletes on the field and track. Here the two sides of the story come together, most famously in the person of Jessie Owens, the black quadruple gold medal winner.Hitler's Olympics is featured on the Sports Journalists' Association website:www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/olympics/should-we-send-a-jew-to-cover-the-berlin-olympics/

An essential book for the 21st-century citizen who seeks a lively guided tour of the ancient Greek Olympics What was it like to attend the Olympics in 388 B.C.? Would the experience resemble Olympic festivals as we celebrate them today? This remarkable book transports us back to the heyday of the city-state and classical Greek civilization. It invites us to enter this distant, alien, but still familiar culture and discover what the Greeks did and didn't do during five thrilling days in August 2,400 years ago. In the Olympic Stadium there were no stands, no shade-and no women allowed. Visitors sat on a grassy bank in the searing heat of midsummer to watch naked athletes compete in footraces, the pentathlon, horse and chariot races, and three combat sports-wrestling, boxing, and pankration, everyone's favorite competition, with virtually no rules and considerable blood and pain. This colorfully illustrated volume offers a complete tour of the Olympic site exactly as athletes and spectators found it. The book evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of the crowded encampment; introduces the various attendees (from champions and charlatans to aristocrats and prostitutes); and explains the numerous exotic religious rituals. Uniquely detailed and precise, this guide offers readers an unparalleled opportunity to travel in time, back to the excitement of ancient Olympia.

From the critically acclaimed and bestselling author David Maraniss, a groundbreaking book that weaves sports, politics, and history into a tour de force about the 1960 Rome Olympics, eighteen days of theater, suspense, victory, and defeat

David Maraniss draws compelling portraits of the athletes competing in Rome, including some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at eighteen seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.

Along with these unforgettable characters and dramatic contests, there was a deeper meaning to those late-summer days at the dawn of the sixties. Change was apparent everywhere. The world as we know it was coming into view.

Rome saw the first doping scandal, the first commercially televised Summer Games, the first athlete paid for wearing a certain brand of shoes. Old-boy notions of Olympic amateurism were crumbling and could never be taken seriously again. In the heat of the cold war, the city teemed with spies and rumors of defections. Every move was judged for its propaganda value. East and West Germans competed as a unified team less than a year before the Berlin Wall.There was dispute over the two Chinas. An independence movement was sweeping sub-Saharan Africa, with fourteen nations in the process of being born. There was increasing pressure to provide equal rights for blacks and women as they emerged from generations of discrimination.

Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, Maraniss reveals the rich palate of character, competition, and meaning that gave Rome 1960 its singular essence.

Hodder & Stoughton admire Sir Mo's bravery in revealing his experience of being trafficked as a child. His memoir TWIN AMBITIONS, published in 2013, is based on the story he felt able to tell at the time, which we understood to be the true version of events. It is now clear that Sir Mo did not wish to share some of his difficult early experiences and we respect the decisions he made both then and now. 4 August, 2012. Super Saturday. On the most electric night in the history of British sport, Mo Farah braved the pain and punishment to seize Olympic gold in the 10,000m - and in the process went from being a talented athlete to a national treasure. Seven days later, Mo seized his second gold at the 5000m to go where no British distance runner has gone before. In 2016 Mo acheived an even more stunning feat at the Rio Olympic Games, successfully defending both his titles to complete an extraordinary double-double. Records have tumbled before him: European track records at 1500m, 5000m indoors, and 10,000m; British track records at 5000m, 3000m indoors and 10k on the road have all fallen to Mohamed 'Mo' Farah: the boy from Somalia who came to Britain at the age of eight, leaving behind his twin brother, and with just a few words of English, and a natural talent for running. TWIN AMBITIONS is much more than an autobiography by a great Olympic champion. It's a moving human story of a man who grew up in difficult circumstances, separated from his family at an early age, who struggled to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become Britain's most decorated Olympic track-and-field athlete ever.

This title is suitable for children of ages 4 to 8 years. Keep the Olympic spirit alive! Children can learn all about the Winter Olympic Sports and catch the spirit with these highly motivational and fun-to-read Easy Olympic Sports Readers. These colourful and exciting books represent six of the most popular winter sports: Sledding, Skiing, Figure Skating, Speed Skating, Ice Hockey, Snowboarding. With such enticing subjects, beginning readers will visit their favourite sports often while learning how to read.

The Beijing Olympics will be remembered as the largest, most expensive, and most widely watched event of the modern Olympic era. But did China present itself as a responsible host and an emergent international power, much like Japan during the 1964 Tokyo Games and South Korea during the 1988 Seoul Games? Or was Beijing in 2008 more like Berlin in 1936, when Germany took advantage of the global spotlight to promote its political ideology at home and abroad?

"Beyond the Final Score" takes an original look at the 2008 Beijing games within the context of the politics of sport in Asia. Asian athletics are bound up with notions of national identity and nationalism, refracting political intent and the processes of globalization. Sporting events can generate diplomatic breakthroughs (as with the results of Nixon and Mao's "ping-pong diplomacy") or breakdowns (as when an athlete defects to another country). For China, the Beijing Games introduced a liberalizing ethos that its authoritative regime could ignore only at its peril.

Victor D. Cha--former director of Asian affairs for the White House--evaluates Beijing's contention with this pressure considering the intense scrutiny China already faced on issues of counterproliferation, global warming, and free trade. He begins with the arguments that tie Asian sport to international affairs and follows with an explanation of athletics as they relate to identity, diplomacy, and transformation. Enhanced by Cha's remarkable facility with the history and politics of sport, "Beyond the Final Score" is the definitive examination of the events--both good and bad--that took place during the Beijing Olympics.

Growing up in Maplewood, New Jersey the only Black, Muslim-American in hijab, in middle school Ibtihaj discovered fencing, a sport traditionally reserved for the wealthy and elite. Though she would start fencing later than most at 12 years old, she had an undeniable talent-the sort that would soon put her on the international stage. But Ibtihaj saw something more in her Olympic journey: an opportunity to take action, to stand up and make a Muslim-American woman of color impossible to ignore. Ibtihaj's path to Olympic greatness has been marked with hateful opposition and near-debilitating challenges-bigotry from teammates at Duke University and Team USA, death threats, and social hardships as a Muslim-American. In Proud, her exhilarating emergence from young outsider to national hero and outspoken activist is a timeless, uniquely American tale of hard work, determination, and resilience that hasn't been told.

WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARD FOR GENERAL OUTSTANDING SPORTS WRITING A captivating account of the Nazi Olympics - told through the voices and stories of those who were there. 'Compelling, suspenseful and beautifully done' Anna Funder, author of STASILAND For sixteen days in the summer of 1936, the world's attention turned to the German capital as it hosted the Olympic Games. Seen through the eyes of a cast of characters - Nazi leaders and foreign diplomats, athletes and journalists, nightclub owners and jazz musicians - Berlin 1936 plunges us into the high tension of this unfolding scene. Alongside the drama in the Olympic Stadium - from the triumph of Jesse Owens to the scandal when an American tourist breaks through the security and manages to kiss Hitler - Oliver Hilmes takes us behind the scenes and into the lives of ordinary Berliners: the woman with a dark secret who steps in front of a train, the transsexual waiting for the Gestapo's knock on the door, and the Jewish boy hoping that Germany may lose in the sporting arena. During the sporting events the dictatorship was partially put on hold; here then, is a last glimpse of the vibrant and diverse life in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s that the Nazis aimed to destroy. LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2018

The Berlin Olympics, August 14, 1936. German rowers, dominant at the Games, line up against America's top eight-oared crew. Hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide wait by their radios. Leni Riefenstahl prepares her cameramen. Grantland Rice looks past the 75,000 spectators crowding the riverbank. Above it all, the Nazi leadership, flush with the propaganda triumph the Olympics have given their New Germany, await a crowning victory they can broadcast to the world. The Berlin Games matched cutting-edge communication technology with compelling sports narrative to draw the blueprint for all future sports broadcasting. A global audience--the largest cohort of humanity ever assembled--enjoyed the spectacle via radio. This still-novel medium offered a "liveness," a thrilling immediacy no other technology had ever matched. Michael J. Socolow's account moves from the era's technological innovations to the human drama of how the race changed the lives of nine young men. As he shows, the origins of global sports broadcasting can be found in this single, forgotten contest. In those origins we see the ways the presentation, consumption, and uses of sport changed forever.

In the summer of 1912 Hopi runner Louis Tewanima won silver in the 10,000-meter race at the Stockholm Olympics. In that same year Tewanima and another champion Hopi runner, Philip Zeyouma, were soundly defeated by two Hopi elders in a race hosted by members of the tribe. Long before Hopis won trophy cups or received acclaim in American newspapers, Hopi clan runners competed against each other on and below their mesas-and when they won footraces, they received rain. Hopi Runners provides a window into this venerable tradition at a time of great consequence for Hopi culture. The book places Hopi long-distance runners within the larger context of American sport and identity from the early 1880s to the 1930s, a time when Hopis competed simultaneously for their tribal communities, Indian schools, city athletic clubs, the nation, and themselves. Author Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert brings a Hopi perspective to this history. His book calls attention to Hopi philosophies of running that connected the runners to their villages; at the same time it explores the internal and external forces that strengthened and strained these cultural ties when Hopis competed in US marathons. Between 1908 and 1936 Hopi marathon runners such as Tewanima, Zeyouma, Franklin Suhu, and Harry Chaca navigated among tribal dynamics, school loyalties, and a country that closely associated sport with US nationalism. The cultural identity of these runners, Sakiestewa Gilbert contends, challenged white American perceptions of modernity, and did so in a way that had national and international dimensions. This broad perspective linked Hopi runners to athletes from around the world-including runners from Japan, Ireland, and Mexico-and thus, Hopi Runners suggests, caused non-Natives to reevaluate their understandings of sport, nationhood, and the cultures of American Indian people.

In the world of sports, the most important component is the athlete. After all, without athletes there would be no sports. In ancient Greece, athletes were public figures, idolized and envied. This fascinating book draws on a broad range of ancient sources to explore the development of athletes in Greece from the archaic period to the Roman Empire. Whereas many previous books have focused on the origins of the Greek games themselves, or the events or locations where the games took place, this volume places a unique emphasis on the athletes themselves - and the fostering of their athleticism. Moving beyond stereotypes of larger-than-life heroes, Reyes BertolIn CebriAn examines the experiences of ordinary athletes, who practiced sports for educational, recreational, or professional purposes. According to BertolIn CebriAn, the majority of athletes in ancient times were young men and mostly single. Similar to today, most athletes practiced sport as part of their schooling. Yet during the fifth century B.C., a major shift in ancient Greek education took place, when the curriculum for training future leaders became more academic in orientation. As a result, argues BertolIn CebriAn, the practice of sport in the Hellenistic period lost its appeal to the intellectual elite, even as it remained popular with large sectors of the population. Thus, a gap emerged between the 'higher' and 'lower' cultures of sport. In looking at the implications of this development for athletes, whether high-performing or recreational, this erudite volume traverses such wide-ranging fields as history, literature, medicine, and sports psychology to recreate - in compelling detail - the life and lifestyle of the ancient Greek athlete.

The torch relay that staple of Olympic pageantry first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain. The Olympic festival was a crucial part of the Nazi regime's mobilization of power. Nazi Games offers a superb blend of history and sport. The narrative includes a stirring account of the international effort to boycott the games, derailed finally by the American Olympic Committee and the determination of its head, Avery Brundage, to participate. Nazi Games also recounts the dazzling athletic feats of these Olympics, including Jesse Owens's four gold-medal performances and the marathon victory of Korean runner Kitei Son, the Rising Sun of imperial Japan on his bib."

Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

Simon Timson and Chelsea Warr were the Performance Directors of UK Sport, tasked with the outrageous objective of delivering even greater success to Team GB and ParalympicsGB at Rio than in 2012. Something no other host nation had ever achieved in the next Games.

In The Talent Lab, Owen Slot brings unique access to Team GB’s intelligence, sharing for the first time the incredible breakthroughs and insights they discovered that often extend way beyond sport. Using lessons from organisations as far afield as the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, the NFL Draft, the Royal College of Surgeons and the SAS, it shows how talent can be discovered, created, shaped and sustained.

Charting the success of the likes of Chris Hoy, Max Whitlock, Adam Peaty, Ed Clancy, Lizzy Yarnold, Dave Henson, Tom Daley, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Katherine Grainger, the Brownlee Brothers, Helen Glover, Anthony Joshua and the women’s hockey team, The Talent Lab tells just how it was done and how any team, business or individual might learn from it.

Longlisted for Autobiography of the Year, Sports Book Awards 2022 The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller 'Honest and moving - everything a memoir should be' The Sun 'An illuminating look at what it takes to be an Olympian ... in this story, passion reigns supreme' Cosmopolitan A deeply personal and inspiring memoir from one of the most celebrated and influential names in British sport. Tom Daley captured the hearts of the nation with his unforgettable medal-winning performance in the London 2012 Olympics. At this year's Games in Tokyo, he triumphed to win gold and became the most decorated British diver of all time. In this deeply personal book, Tom explores the experiences that have shaped him and the qualities to which he owes his contentment and success; from the resilience he developed competing at world-class level, to the courage he discovered while reclaiming the narrative around his sexuality, and the perspective that family life has brought him. Candid and perceptive, Coming Up for Air offers a unique insight into the life and mindset of one our greatest and most-loved athletes.

Once a showcase for amateur athletics, the Olympic Games have become a global entertainment colossus powered by corporate sponsorship and professional participation. Stephen R. Wenn and Robert K. Barney offer the inside story of this transformation by examining the far-sighted leadership and decision-making acumen of four International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidents: Avery Brundage, Lord Killanin, Juan Antonio Samaranch, and Jacques Rogge. Blending biography with historical storytelling, the authors explore the evolution of Olympic commercialism from Brundage's uneasy acceptance of television rights fees through the revenue generation strategies that followed the Salt Lake City bid scandal to the present day. Throughout, Wenn and Barney draw on their decades of studying Olympic history to dissect the personalities, conflicts, and controversies behind the Games' embrace of the business of spectacle. Entertaining and expert, The Gold in the Rings maps the Olympics' course from paragon of purity to billion-dollar profits.

Digger, an 85 kilo wrestler, and Sadie, a 26-year-old speed swimmer, stand on the verge of realizing every athlete' s dream-- winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Both athletes are nearing the end of their athletic careers, and are forced to confront the question: what happens to athletes when their bodies are too old and injured to compete? The blossoming relationship between Digger and Sadie is tested in the all-important months leading up to the Olympics, as intense training schedules, divided loyalties, and unpredicted obstacles take their draining toll. The Olympics, as both of them are painfully aware, will be the realization or the end of a life' s dream. The Bone Cage captures the physicality, sensuality, and euphoric highs of amateur sport, and the darker, cruel side of sport programs that wear athletes down and spit them out at the end of their bloom. With realism and humour, author Angie Abdou captures athletes on the brink of that transition-- the lead-up to that looming redefinition of self-- and explores how people deal with the loss of their dream.

In this revised and all-colour edition of her indispensable guide to the ancient Games, Judith Swaddling traces their mythological and religious origins, and describes the events, the sacred ceremony and the celebrations that were an essential part of the Olympic festival. A large, detailed model based on modern research and excavation reconstructs the site of ancient Olympia, where alongside religious and civic buildings there grew an elaborate sports complex with a stadium for 40,000 spectators, indoor and outdoor training facilities, hot and cold baths, a swimming pool and a race-course. Later chapters cover the diet and medical treatment of athletes, sponsorship, patronage, propaganda and revivals of the Games and a brand new chapter, based on the latest research discusses the literary sources for the Olympic Games. The expanded final chapter on the modern Games is written in collaboration with Stewart Binns, an expert in this field who has worked closely with the International Olympic Committee over many years, and has been revised to bring the story up to the preparations for the London 2012 Games. Illustrated with gorgeous, full-colour photography and covering thousands of years of Olympic history, this fascinating book is essential reading for anyone interested in the Olympic Games.

Can sports and politics mix? They can and do, according to the author of this study of the Olympic Games. Richard Espy's objective is to show how the organization of the Games reflects the structure of international politics. He focuses on four basic issues concerning the Olympic system during the post-World War II period: German participation; Chinese participation; South African and Rhodesia participation; and the role of sport federations, international organizations, and business interests in the Olympics. Espy discusses the relationship between the Olympic idea of international amity through sport competition and the reality of world affairs, how television has changed governmental views and use of the Olympic Games, and whether sports can be used legitimately as a political tool. He also recommends possible changes in the organizational structure of the event-or even the Olympic ideal itself-to help the Games achieve their intended result: an atmosphere of international good will. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1979, followed by a paperback in 1981.

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit" and "Unbroken," the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics
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"Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together--a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.
Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, "The Boys in the Boat "is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times--the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's "The Amateurs."