My name is Roberto La Barbera, I'm a Paralympic champion. My life changed forever on June 1, 1985, when my right leg left me on the road connecting Alessandria with Novi Ligure, in Italy, wedged between the metal fender and radiator of a big fat sand-colored Alfasud. The book you're buying tells the story of my life without frills, in hopes that reading it may give a smile to those who, unfortunately, have lost all hope. To those who are thinking that life will no longer be normal, after making a mistake.

La gran lecci n de vida que recibi "Mauri," al notificarle su m dico ur logo que ten a c ncer de pr stata y sobrevivir a una cirug a complicada que lo mantuvo en convalecencia por m?'s de 2 meses, lo motiv a meditar sobre la necesidad de escribir sus experiencias deportivas como corredor, ciclista y atleta "m ster," aport ndolas mediante los programas de entrenamiento que utiliz, para ganar competencias de ciclismo, triatlones ol mpicos, medios Iron Man, un tercer lugar en el Iron Man y destacadas participaciones en innumerables carreras pedestres desde 5km. hasta el marat n. Sin duda servir como una gu a para aquellos que quieran disfrutar de cualquiera de estos deportes sin importar su edad, adem?'s sepan que con la adquisici n de este ejempla, contribuyen con un granito de arena con los ni os que padecen c ncer y son tratados en el Centro Estatal de Cancerolog a Dr. Miguel Dorantes Mesa en Xalapa, Veracruz.

Held in Germany, the 1936 Olympic Games sparked international controversy. Should athletes and nations boycott the games to protest the Nazi regime? More Than Just Games is the history of Canada's involvement in the 1936 Olympics. It is the story of the Canadian Olympic officials and promoters who were convinced that national unity and pride demanded that Canadian athletes compete in the Olympics without regard for politics. It is the story of those Canadian athletes, mostly young and far more focused on sport than politics, who were eager to make family, friends, and country proud of their efforts on Canada's behalf. And, finally, it is the story of those Canadians who led an unsuccessful campaign to boycott the Olympics and deny Nazi Germany the propaganda coup of serving as an Olympic host. Written by two noted historians of Canadian Jewish history, Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, More than Just Games brings to life the collision of politics, patriotism, and the passion of sport on the eve of the Second World War.

Leroy Goes To The Olympics, a children's graphic novel by Sybil Blazej-Yee, Concept by Dr. Michael Sheps, Artwork by Toran Joseph. Leroy Dixon's story is based on interviews with the Olympic athlete and conveys his struggle and the people who cheered him on through years of training. His life is sure to inspire 3rd to 5th grade boys who love to find out more about a real sports figure. The graphics feature refreshing artwork by a young new illustrator.

The Olympics have developed into the world's premier sporting event. They are simultaneously a competitive exhibition and a grand display of cooperation that bring together global cultures on ski slopes, shooting ranges, swimming pools and track ovals. Given their scale in the modern era, the Games are a useful window for better comprehending larger cultural, social and historical processes, argues Jules Boykoff, an academic social scientist and a former Olympic athlete. In Activism and the Olympics, Boykoff provides a critical overview of the Olympic industry and its political opponents in the modern era. After presenting a brief history of Olympic activism, he turns his attention to on-the-ground activism through the lens of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Here we see how anti-Olympic activists deploy a range of approaches to challenge the Olympic machine, from direct action and the seizure of public space to humour-based and online tactics. Drawing on primary evidence from myriad personal interviews with activists, journalists, civil libertarians and Olympics organisers, Boykoff angles in on the Games from numerous vantages and viewpoints. Although modern Olympic authorities have strived - even through the Cold War era - to appear apolitical, Boykoff notes, the Games have always been the site of hotly contested political actions and competing interests. During the last thirty years, as the Olympics became an economic juggernaut, they also generated numerous reactions from groups that have sought to challenge the event's triumphalism and pageantry. The 21st century has seen an increased level of activism across the world, from the Occupy Movement in the United States to the Arab Spring in the Middle East. What does this spike in dissent mean for Olympic activists as they prepare for Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Games and Rio de Janeiro, where the 2016 Summer Olympics will take place?

Mexican leaders eagerly anticipated the attention that hosting the world's most visible sporting event would bring, yet they could not have predicted the array of conflicts that would play out before the eyes of the world during the notorious 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Following twenty years of economic growth and political stability-known as the "Mexican miracle"-Mexican policy makers escaped their prior image of being economically underdeveloped to successfully craft an image of a nation that was both modern and cosmopolitan but also steeped in culture and tradition. Buoyed by this new image, they set their sights on the Olympic bid, and they not only won but also prepared impressive facilities. Prior to the opening ceremonies, several controversies emerged, the most glaring of which was a student protest movement that culminated in a public massacre, leaving several hundred students dead. Less dramatic were concerns that athletes would suffer harm in the high elevation and thin air, debates over the nature of amateurism, threats by nations opposing apartheid to boycott if South Africa was allowed to compete, and the introduction of drug and gender testing. Additionally the Olympics provided a forum for the United States and the Soviet Union to carry their Cold War rivalry to the playing field-a way to achieve victory without world destruction at stake. During the Games, one of the most significant controversies occurred when two African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raised their fists in the Black Power salute while on the medal stand. This gesture brought worldwide attention to racism within the United States and remains a lasting image of both the Mexico City Olympics and the Civil Rights movement. Although the Olympics are intended to bring athletes of the world together for harmonious competition, the 1968 Games will long be remembered as fraught with discord. This ambitious and comprehensive study will appeal to those interested in US history, Latin American history, sports history, and Olympic history.

This is a true story. What is the ultimate price of success? In 1924, swimming superstar Hilda James was a dead cert for the British Team at the Paris Olympics. Her family had other ideas. This is the account of a World Champion who suddenly found that her ultimate challenge was to pull her life back together after her dream was cruelly shattered forever. Hilda wasn't about to bow down to anybody and broke away, finally achieving full emancipation. A social history of life in South Liverpool plus the story of Parkgate Baths on The Wirral provide the early background for this extraordinary book. The final chapters are set against the backdrop of life as a celebrity crewmember aboard Cunard's first purpose built cruise liner, Carinthia.

Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is the motto of the International Olympic Committee. After reading Les Woodland's "The Olympics' 50 Craziest Stories" the reader might wonder if the motto should be Sillier, Loonier, Crazier. There is the gentle rower who was winning his race when he stopped his scull to avoid scattering a mother duck and her ducklings-we'll let your read the book to find out how he did-and the American socialites who showed up for a golf game in Paris and accidentally ended up in the Olympic golf contest. There was so much confusion that year they never learned one of them had become Olympic champion. Oh, and the men's Olympic golf champion had actually journeyed to Paris to play tennis.Shooting live pigeons was an event in the 1900 Olympics, but there's no mention today of the competition out of embarrassment over the 300 dead and maimed birds that revulsed the spectators. We can't forget the Jamaican bobsled team nor the Russian KGB colonel who rigged the scoring in fencing and managed to create an international incident. They are all in "The Olympics' 50 Craziest Stories," along with dozens more athletes who managed to attain fame they would rather not have earned.In addition to the 50 stories of competitors behaving badly, or at least oddly, Les Woodland has sprinkled collections of interesting and sometimes improbable Olympics facts throughout, making "The Olympics' 50 Craziest Stories" fun from cover to cover.As the author of 26 books, Les Woodland knows how to tell a story and here he's in fine form. Join him in his trip to the crazy side of sports.

Opening with the tragedy of Nomar Kumaritashvili's death in Whistler and concluding with one final gold for the hockey-mad home country, the fortnight of the Vancouver Olympics brought out the range of human emotion -- from gilded joy to funereal gloom. In this volume, Zach Bigalke utilizes both his daily dispatches from February 2010 and the benefit of hindsight to tell the multifaceted stories of those seventeen days...