IN 1936, Adolf Hitler welcomed the world to Berlin to attend the Olympic Games. It promised to be not only a magnificent sporting event but also a grand showcase for the rebuilt Germany. No effort was spared to present the Third Reich as the newest global power. But beneath the glittering surface, the Games of the Eleventh Olympiad of the Modern Era came to act as a crucible for the dark political forces that were gathering, foreshadowing the bloody conflict to come.

The 1936 Olympics were nothing less than the most political sporting event of the last century--an epic clash between proponents of barbarism and those of civilization, both of whom tried to use the Games to promote their own values. Berlin Games is the complete history of those fateful two weeks in August. It is a story of the athletes and their accomplishments, an eye-opening account of the Nazi machine's brazen attempt to use the Games as a model of Aryan superiority and fascist efficiency, and a devastating indictment of the manipulative power games of politicians, diplomats, and Olympic officials that would ultimately have profound consequences for the entire world.

This is a new edition of Greg Louganis's 1995 #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography and Literary Guild Selection. It is the unflinchingly honest first-person account of a man breaking free of a lifetime of silence and isolation.
Born to a young Samoan father and Northern European mother, and adopted at nine months, Greg began diving at age nine, and at sixteen won a silver medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. But despite his astonishing athletic skill, Greg struggled with late-detected dyslexia, prejudice toward his dark skin coloring and anguish over his homosexuality, which he felt compelled to hide. Being in the spotlight intensified his difficulties with relationships and substance abuse.
However, Louganis went on to win double gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. His triumph at the 1988 Olympics came several months after he tested positive for HIV. This is the haunting, searingly candid story of the world's greatest diver. This new edition includes a new foreword.

The race to secure the bid for the Summer Games of 2012 is among the most intense in history. Five of the world's most prominent cities have tossed their hat into the ring for the right to host the most prestigious international event in sports. They have consciously chosen to saddle the immense responsibility that comes with a winning bid. It seems that, more than any impending Summer Games, the 2012 bid has garnered substantial media and public attention and scrutiny well before the host city was due to be decided. Never before has the competition been so close and packed with an almost tangible tension. The five cities to make it to the final round have gone to tremendous lengths to prove to the world that their bid is the most worthy. Madrid, Moscow, Paris, London, and New York are battling it out in this battle of metropolises to see who will be the last city standing in this global political, civic, athletic, and financial battle of pride to be known as the 2012 host city. This book aims to condense what is a mountain of numbers and documents diligently presented by each candidate city into information that is slightly simpler to understand for outsiders to give the reader a clearer view into the rather exclusive and often unforgiving world of planning to host the Summer Games. Also by Chetan Dave: Bronx Cheer For more information logon to: www. chetandave.com or www.ultimatewriter.com

"In this book on the spectacular races at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, Bill Stowe writes with the same deadly accuracy and drive that he showed as the stroke of that crew. He writes not as his own remembrances would be so long after the fact, but rather in the tightly woven factual web of interviews of rowers from around the world. This is a compelling book because it develops the diverse backgrounds and experiences that a small group of men brought for the sole purpose of winning a gold medal in the Olympics. It was so momentous that this feat has not been repeated for the United States for 40 years, and then only with the force of a truly national effort and all of the weight and backing that that brings. Vesper is a storied club and it is in this romantic context that this group of lightly regarded mature men won for their club, their city and their country. Each man brings a special facet of himself to build the mosaic that created the perfect mix. This is a compelling story, intricately researched and crisply written that makes it a must for people who dream and who want to succeed." Allen P. Rosenberg
Coach of the 1964 Olympic Crew ""ALL TOGETHER" is an inspirational story about one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history. A must read for any American who has ever picked up an oar" Mike Teti
Coach of the 2004 Olympic Crew

"What was it like to attend the ancient Olympic Games?
With the summer Olympics' return to Athens, Tony Perrottet delves into the ancient world and lets the Greek Games begin again. The acclaimed author of Pagan Holiday brings attitude, erudition, and humor to the fascinating story of the original Olympic festival, tracking the event day by day to re-create the experience in all its compelling spectacle.
Using firsthand reports and little-known sources--including an actual "Handbook for a Sports Coach used by the Greeks--The Naked Olympics creates a vivid picture of an extravaganza performed before as many as forty thousand people, featuring contests as timeless as the javelin throw and as exotic as the chariot race.
Peeling away the layers of myth," Perrottet lays bare the ancient sporting experience--including the round-the-clock bacchanal inside the tents of the Olympic Village, the all-male nude workouts under the statue of Eros, and history's first corruption scandals involving athletes. Featuring sometimes scandalous cameos by sports enthusiasts Plato, Socrates, and Herodotus, The Naked Olympics offers essential insight into today's Games and an unforgettable guide to the world's first and most influential athletic festival.
"Just in time for the modern Olympic games to return to Greece this summer for the first time in more than a century, Tony Perrottet offers up a diverting primer on the Olympics of the ancient kind....Well researched; his sources are as solid as sources come. It's also well writen....Perhaps no book of the season will show us so briefly and entertainingly just how complete is our inheritance from the Greeks, vulgarity and all."
--TheWashington Post

According to most accounts, the man solely responsible for reviving the modern Olympic Games was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Now, in "The Modern Olympics," David C. Young challenges this view, revealing that Coubertin was only the last and most successful of many contributors to the dream of the modern Olympics.

Based on thirteen years of research in previously neglected documents, Young reconstructs the fascinating and almost unknown history of the Olympic revival movement in the nineteenth century, including two long-forgotten Olympiads--one in London in 1866 and another in Athens in 1870. He traces the idea for the modern Olympics back to an obscure Greek poet in 1833 and follows the sinuous tale to a small village in England, where W. P. Brookes held local Olympiads, founded the British Olympic Committee, and told Coubertin about his vision of an international Olympics.

Coubertin's main contribution to the founding of the modern Olympics was the zeal he brought to transforming an idea that had evolved over decades into the reality of Olympiad I and all the Olympic Games held thereafter.

Sixty years ago the Olympic flame was ignited for the first time in the sacred grove of Olympia and carried to the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The significance of the Olympic flame has continued to grow ever since as it travels around the world, visiting different cultures and countries bringing with it the hope for peace and the aim for international understanding.

The Journey of the Olympic Flame celebrates the history and legacy of this time-honored Olympic tradition. This unique book honors the history of the Olympic flame's many journeys as well as the inspirational stories that carried it. It will connect the audience more closely to the Olympic Games, its athletic heroes, the spirit, and the Olympic ideals. This inspiring publication has wide appeal and will be the most complete history done on the Olympic Flame.

Sam Quek is mainly known for her starring role in the 2016 Olympic gold medal winning hockey team. This was the first time a British ladies team had won gold, but what is much less known is that Sam's rise to the top of her spot was far from easy. Sam missed out on being part of Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics but competed for England at the 2013 EuroHockey tournament and 2014 Commonwealth Games, which she won silver medals. She won the gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics after the GB hockey team beat the Netherlands on penalties. How Sam overcame the bitter disappointment of being overlooked for the two previous Olympics and ensured that she wouldn't miss out again are revealed here for the first time. She also tells of her tough childhood and her battle to reach the heights that she has. She then went on to further fame by appearing in 'I'm a Celebrity' where she proved to be hugely popular with the viewing public, eventually finishing fourth. Sam now presents a variety of sports for TV, including men and women's football, NFL and hockey. She has been signed up to be the main presenter for the women's World Hockey Championships in 2018, held in August. She is hugely popular on social media with thousands of followers on twitter and instagram. Sam also has some very strong views on how women are portrayed in sport and their treatment by both coaches and the media. This is a hugely topical subject at the moment and promises to remain so for some time.

This title is suitable for children of ages 6 to 9 years. Celebrate the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games with fun and thought provoking activities. Students learn about Vancouver, as well as Olympic history, traditions, and the sports that will be played.

A variety of viewpoints, in historical context, are presented in this anthology on the place of the Olympics as the leading international sport event from antiquity to pondering their future. This collection constitutes the most important academic and public policy issues affecting the Olympic Movement today. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to know about or bid for an Olympic Games. Part I presents seven articles devoted to Olympic history: the Games' legacy from antiquity, their modern evolution, and the most controversial Games of the modern era, the Berlin Games of 1936. Part II reviews the persistent problems and crises that confounded and defined the Olympic Games over time. The nine essays in this section focus on a variety of issues such as performance enhancement; the rise of commercialism; enduring controversies in the form of leadership, corruption, and the Cold War; and the politics of hosting Olympic Games. Finally, in Part III, the future of the Modern Olympic Movement is addressed from the perspective of the rapidly accelerating and mushrooming process of globalization.

Opening with Vince Lombardi's last win as coach of the Packers in Super Bowl II and closing with Joe Namath's Super Bowl III guarantee, James Nicholson delivers an original portrait of a sensational closing decade in American culture. Controversies on the field and in the ring reflected broader political and social turmoil in the late-sixties United States. With one of the most contentious presidential elections in US history, the ongoing civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War all storming in the background, Nicholson charts a course through the oddly unsettled waters of American sports in 1968: the Masters golf tournament decided by the strict enforcement of an arcane rule to the detriment of a foreign player; the winner of the Kentucky Derby disqualified for a drug violation; Muhammad Ali waiting in sports exile while he appealed a criminal conviction for draft evasion; an unorthodox rendition of the national anthem at the World Series nearly overshadowing the game it preceded; and the silent gesture at the Mexico City Olympics made by Tommie Smith and John Carlos that shocked the nation

Every Sunday for almost a century John Cann's family ran the famous snake show in a pit at La Perouse in Sydney - an area once alive with tiger, brown and black snakes. After growing up with over 300 'pet' snakes in their backyard, John and his brother George took over the snake show from their parents in 1965. By the time John retired in 2010, he'd survived five venomous snake bites. Many of those familiar with John and his shows wouldn't know that he was also an Olympic athlete, a top state rugby league player who played alongside some of the legends of the game, a state champion boxer, an adventurer and a world authority on turtles. The Last Snake Man chronicles John's extraordinary life and times. From wrangling snakes to chasing turtles, from remote country towns to the impenetrable jungles of New Guinea, this is the story of an amazing Australian and his never-ending search for fascinating animals and adventure.

The extraordinary story of the small Vermont town that has likely produced more Olympians per capita than any other place in the country, Norwich gives "parents of young athletes a great gift--a glimpse at another way to raise accomplished and joyous competitors" (The Washington Post). In Norwich, Vermont--a charming town of organic farms and clapboard colonial buildings--a culture has taken root that's the opposite of the hypercompetitive schoolyard of today's tiger moms and eagle dads. In Norwich, kids aren't cut from teams. They don't specialize in a single sport, and they even root for their rivals. What's more, their hands-off parents encourage them to simply enjoy themselves. Yet this village of roughly three thousand residents has won three Olympic medals and sent an athlete to almost every Winter Olympics for the past thirty years. Now, New York Times reporter and "gifted storyteller" (The Wall Street Journal) Karen Crouse spills Norwich's secret to raising not just better athletes than the rest of America but happier, healthier kids. And while these "counterintuitive" (Amy Chua, bestselling author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) lessons were honed in the New England snow, parents across the country will find that "Crouse's message applies beyond a particular town or state" (The Wall Street Journal). If you're looking for answers about how to raise joyful, resilient kids, let Norwich take you to a place that has figured it out.

In 1968, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) implemented sex testing for female athletes at that year's Games. When it became clear that testing regimes failed to delineate a sex divide, the IOC began to test for gender--a shift that allowed the organization to control the very idea of womanhood. Ranging from Cold War tensions to gender anxiety to controversies around doping, Lindsay Parks Pieper explores sex testing in sport from the 1930s to the early 2000s. Pieper examines how the IOC in particular insisted on a misguided binary notion of gender that privileged Western norms. Testing evolved into a tool to identify--and eliminate--athletes the IOC deemed too strong, too fast, or too successful. Pieper shows how this system punished gifted women while hindering the development of women's athletics for decades. She also reveals how the flawed notions behind testing--ideas often sexist, racist, or ridiculous--degraded the very idea of female athleticism.

In the northwestern corner of the great peninsula of the Peloponnese, close to the meeting point of the Cladeus and Alpheus rivers, lies a peaceful river valley overlooked by the steep-sided Hill of Cronus. Here, between the eighth century BCE and the fourth century CE, rival athletes competed for glory in the ancient Olympic Games. Every four years, and from every corner of the Mediterranean world – from Samos to Syracuse and from Sparta to Smyrna – they descended on this quiet corner of southern Greece sacred to Zeus, seeking to excel in disciplines as diverse as sprinting, boxing, wrestling, trumpet blowing and chariot and mulecart racing.

The victors of these ancient games may have been awarded crowns of olive leaves in recognition of their achievements, but these original Olympics were no idealistic celebration of the classical aesthetic of grace and beauty shared by all of the participating Greek city-states, but often a bitterly contested struggle between political rivals. Robin Waterfield paints a vivid picture of the reality of the ancient Olympic Games; describes the events in which competitors took part; explores their purpose, rituals and politics; and charts the vicissitudes of their remarkable thousand-year history.

The 1972 Munich Olympics - remembered almost exclusively for the devastating terrorist attack on the Israeli team - were intended to showcase the New Germany and replace lingering memories of the Third Reich. That hope was all but obliterated in the early hours of September 5, when gun-wielding Palestinians murdered 11 members of the Israeli team. In the first cultural and political history of the Munich Olympics, Kay Schiller and Christopher Young set these Games into both the context of 1972 and the history of the modern Olympiad. Delving into newly available documents, Schiller and Young chronicle the impact of the Munich Games on West German society.

In 1968, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) implemented sex testing for female athletes at that year's Games. When it became clear that testing regimes failed to delineate a sex divide, the IOC began to test for gender--a shift that allowed the organization to control the very idea of womanhood. Ranging from Cold War tensions to gender anxiety to controversies around doping, Lindsay Parks Pieper explores sex testing in sport from the 1930s to the early 2000s. Pieper examines how the IOC in particular insisted on a misguided binary notion of gender that privileged Western norms. Testing evolved into a tool to identify--and eliminate--athletes the IOC deemed too strong, too fast, or too successful. Pieper shows how this system punished gifted women while hindering the development of women's athletics for decades. She also reveals how the flawed notions behind testing--ideas often sexist, racist, or ridiculous--degraded the very idea of female athleticism.

WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'Brutally honest . . . A moving, candid tale of a coach taking the plunge with a rugby ball as his only buoyancy aid' DAILY EXPRESS 'An engrossing account of a remarkable story' EVENING STANDARD 'An excellent read covering a brilliant journey' Sir Clive Woodward It is late summer 2013. Ben Ryan, a red-haired, 40-something, spectacle-wearing Englishman, is given 20 minutes to decide whether he wants to coach Fiji's rugby sevens team, with the aim of taking them to the nation's first-ever Olympic medal. He has never been to Fiji. There has been no discussion of contracts or salary. But he knows that no one plays rugby like the men from these isolated Pacific islands, just as no one plays football like the kids from the Brazilian favelas, or no one runs as fast as the boys and girls from Jamaica's boondocks. He knows too that no other rugby nation has so little - no money and no resources, only basic equipment and a long, sad history of losing its most gifted players to richer, greedier nations. Ryan says yes. And with that simple word he sets in motion an extraordinary journey that will encompass witchdoctors and rugby-obsessed prime ministers, sun-smeared dawns and devastating cyclones, intense friendships and bitter rows, phone taps and wild nationwide parties. It will end in Rio with a performance that not only wins Olympic gold but reaches fresh heights for rugby union and makes Ben and his 12 players living legends back home.

This title is suitable for children of ages 9 to 12 years. It offers puzzles, riddles, games, and brain teasers that are based on the Olympic Games.

In the last century young Jews, particularly in Central Europe, found that they had the new and exhilarating opportunity to give expression to their physical talents and energy. How they and their successors grasped it is the theme of this engaging book, the fruits of the author's lifelong research and enthusiasm. Even after the Holocaust, Jews were among the outstanding Olympians, and over 400 Jewish medallists from the first modern Games in Athens in 1896 to the Sydney Millennium Games. However, this is not merely a book of record and records, names and events. Yogi Mayer has drawn on his own memories as an athlete, coach, educator and sports journalist to create a compelling, illustrated eyewitness account. He has known many of the athletes who are featured in the book and he describes their personalities, virtues, weaknesses and, in some cases, tragic fates.

This title is suitable for children of ages 9 to 12 years. Celebrate the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games with fun and thought provoking activities. Students learn about Vancouver, as well as Olympic history, traditions, and the sports that will be played.

Presenting a multi-disciplinary approach to Mexico City's staging of the Olympic Games in 1968, this book combines analyses of literary works and protest music with comparative history to offer a fresh appreciation of the significance of the event. Explores the first Olympic Games to be hosted by a Spanish-speaking, Latin American country Includes new and pioneering research data on the Mexico Games An innovative approach from scholars from a variety of disciplines Re-appraisal of momentous events from an unusually wide diversity of geographical and thematic perspectives Applies historical analysis to inform future events

One. Two. Three. That's as long as it took to sear the souls of a dozen young American men, thanks to the craziest, most controversial finish in the history of the Olympics-the 1972 gold-medal basketball contest between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world's two superpowers at the time. The U.S. team, whose unbeaten Olympic streak dated back to when Adolf Hitler reigned over the Berlin Games, believed it had won the gold medal that September in Munich-not once, but twice. But it was the third time the final seconds were played that counted. What happened? The head of international basketball-flouting rules he himself had created-trotted onto the court and demanded twice that time be put back on the clock. A referee allowed an illegal substitution and an illegal free-throw shooter for the Soviets while calling a slew of late fouls on the U.S. players. The American players became the only Olympic athletes in the history of the games to refuse their medals. Of course, the 1972 Olympics are remembered primarily for a far graver matter, when eleven Israeli team members were killed by Palestinian terrorists, stunning the world and temporarily stopping the games. One American player, Tommy Burleson, had a gun to his head as the hostages were marched past him before their deaths. Through interviews with many of the American players and others, the author relates the horror of terrorism, the pain of losing the most controversial championship game in sports history to a hated rival, and the consequences of the players' decision to shun their Olympic medals to this day.

The 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam were the first in which women over the objections of many, including Pope Pius XI and the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin were allowed to run in the marquee track events. Equally remarkable is the story behind the first female gold medal winner in the 100-meter dash, sixteen-year-old American Betty Robinson. A prodigy running in just her fourth organised meet, Robinson stunned the world, earning special praise from the president of the 1928 American Olympic Committee, General Douglas MacArthur. But Robinson’s triumph soon became tragedy when in 1931 she was involved in a life-threatening plane crash. Unable to assume a sprinter’s crouch, she nevertheless joined fellow pioneer Jesse Owens at the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, and achieved further glory on the relay team. Journalist Joe Gergen’s The First Lady of Olympic Track rescues an exceptional figure from obscurity.