Cheslin roared with happiness as the final whistle blew in Yokohama. They were champions! Later, as his captain lifted the 2019 Rugby World Cup trophy into the air, he felt prouder than he'd ever been before - of himself, his team and his country.

Cheslin Kolbe tells the story of a kid from Kraaifontein, Cape Town, whose talent took him to international sports stardom, first to Toulouse, France, and eventually to the call-up that would change his life forever: to play for the Springbok 2019 World Cup squad. It's the heartwarming story of a small player with a big heart whose signature sidestep helped the Springboks win the World Cup trophy for South Africa.

Cheslin Kolbe is part of the "Road to Glory" series, which covers some of South Africa's sporting legends as they set out on their journeys to becoming national and international stars.

Leading cycling writer William Fotheringham presents the biography of the greatest cyclist in history, Eddy Merckx--the extraordinary man who is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing. This definitive history chronicles his life, examining both the ups and the downs. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories and exhibited a remorseless sense of domination that created his legend. But his triumphs only tell half of a story that includes horrific injury, a doping controversy, and tragedy. To discover the background of the Belgian cyclist's former invincibility, the author spoke with those who were there at the time and those who knew Merckx best. This is the singular tale of a man whose fear of failure would drive him to reach the highest pinnacles before ultimately destroying himself.

Two of the most prominent and celebrated athletes in the world, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard came together to contest the $100million SuperFight on April 6, 1987 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. From Frank Sinatra to U2, Joan Collins to Whoopi Goldberg, the stars were drawn to ringside by the huge box-office appeal of the blue-collar, dominant world middleweight champion facing his nemesis, the charismatic and flamboyant Sugar Ray, who was coming out of virtually five years of retirement. Drawing on his deep reservoir of nerve, outstanding technique and a strategy which Budd Schulberg - who provided Marlon Brando with the immortal line, 'I coulda been a contender' - called a compound optical illusion, Leonard won on points. It was boxing's greatest comeback, but to this day the judges' decision remains bitterly contested and not merely by the protagonists. But the story of The SuperFight is much more than the story of the fight, for it details two remarkable lives, the demons that drove both men and the formidable challenges they overcame inside and outside the ring. Hagler grew up in the Newark, New Jersey ghetto of Central Ward, where a riot/rebellion rooted in racism claimed the lives of 26 people, injured 1,000 more and, to the young teenager, was "like the end of the world". Fuelled by anger, he climbed to the top of his domain and ruled for seven years as champion, one of the most accomplished in boxing's annals. Leonard was an Olympic gold medallist and all-American hero whose career was cut short by a detached retina after he became the world welterweight king. He was Muhammad Ali's gifted and anointed successor but he succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse and for years was tormented by a secret - the sexual abuse he endured as an amateur boxer by a trusted coach. As provocative and polarising in its own way as Ali's defining rivalry with Joe Frazier, this is the story of The SuperFight, of Marvin Hagler and Ray Leonard and a fierce fire that still burns.

FORMER NBA STAR LUTHER WRIGHT SHARES HIS HARROWING AND UPLIFTING JOURNEY OF FINDING GOD--AND HIMSELF--WHEN HE HAD NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.
Luther Wright had the life hoop dreams are made of. A first-round NBA draft pick for the Utah Jazz, he was a rookie on a team with basketball legends Karl Malone and John Stockton. He had money, women, cars, and a luxurious bachelor pad overlooking Salt Lake City. But within a year, ravaged by drugs and unable to cope with life as an NBA star, he was homeless, broke and addicted to crack cocaine.
Wright never wanted to play basketball, yet standing more than seven feet tall even as a boy, he thought he had no choice. In this heartrending memoir, he writes candidly about the self-destructive spiral he found himself on after neglecting his passions to pursue the dreams of others. After years of living on the streets, he finally found a gift greater than anything his millions could have bought him--God. Today, Wright offers a simple message: believe in yourself, follow your dreams, and only then will you find your "Perfect Fit."

How did an ancient spiritual practice become the preserve of the privileged?

Nadia Gilani has been practising yoga for twenty-five years. She has also worked as a yoga teacher. Yoga has saved her life and seen her through many highs and lows; it has been a faith, a discipline, and a friend, and she believes wholeheartedly in its radical potential. However, over her years in the wellness industry, Nadia has noticed not only yoga's rising popularity, but also how its modern incarnation no longer serves people of colour, working class people, or many other groups who originally pioneered its creation.

Combining her own memories of how the practice has helped her with an account of its history and transformation in the modern west, Nadia creates a love letter to yoga and a passionate critique of the billion-dollar industry whose cost and inaccessibility has shut out many of those it should be helping. By turns poignant, funny, and shocking, The Yoga Manifesto excavates where the industry has gone wrong, and what can be done to save the practice from its own success.

'The emotional pain of failing just felt like it was going to be a bit worse than the physical pain of carrying on ... ' Attempting to break long-distance running records used to be an underground endeavour, until the virus-stricken summer of 2020 came along. Only a few, such as the Bob Graham Round in the Lake District, had ever broken into mainstream consciousness. But an absence of running races thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented rise in the popularity of attempts at breaking these records. In Broken, Ally Beaven takes an entertaining look at just why 2020 was so unusual for long-distance running. With his interest in Fastest Known Times (FKTs) piqued, Beaven immerses himself in the scene. His summer becomes one of spending hours in the hills feeding, cajoling and generally trying to keep safe the runners he is supporting, as well as following the dots of live trackers in the middle of the night and endlessly refreshing his Twitter feed as records tumble around the country. Through the stories of John Kelly's epic Grand Round, Beth Pascall's record-shattering Bob Graham Round, Donnie Campbell's mind-bending new mark for bagging all 282 Munros, Jo Meek's new overall record for the Nigel Jenkins Dartmoor Round and many others, Beaven brings us an inside look at the incredible FKT machine. Broken is the story of the summer of 2020, a historic time for running in the UK.

'Captures the bold, engaging spirit of one of Britain's best-loved sporting heroes' Sunday Times 'A fascinating read and sure to be the definitive account of his life' Mark Knopfler SHORTLISTED FOR THE SPORTS WRITING BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the death of Stirling Moss on 12 April 2020 at the age of 90 made headlines, almost 60 years after he retired from Formula One. In The Boy, Richard Williams assesses what made him such an iconic figure. Told in 60 brief chapters, Williams builds a fascinating and revealing portrait of a driver who was a hero to millions. As the long years of war began to recede, sport in Britain was getting moving again and there was a need for heroes. Denis Compton and Stanley Matthews were in their pomp, playing to packed houses. But Stirling Moss was a fresh face, just 17 years old when he first emerged in 1947. Too young to have served and been scarred by the war, he was soon revealed to possess not only an unearthly degree of skill but the qualities of courage and resolution noted in the generation that fought in the air and on land and sea. Their youth had been stolen; his was new and unspoiled. The Boy explains how and why he came to occupy such a unique place in the esteem and the affections of the nation. Why him, rather than some of his contemporaries, such as Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, who shared a role in the rise of Britain as a power in international motor racing? Moss may never have been world champion, but he created a remarkable and enduring legacy, and Williams brilliantly shows just how he did it.

Fasten your seatbelts as Formula 1's favourite underdog, Guenther Steiner, takes you on a wild ride through his ten years at Team Haas.

From the first seeds of his idea to establish a new F1 team to the challenges of funding and building that team from the ground up, Guenther shares the real story of the origins of Team Haas, immerses readers in the high and lows of its first decade on the grid, and opens up about his departure from the team at the end of 2023.

As Guenther recalls his proudest achievements and the many, many disasters he has faced, he takes readers behind the scenes, into the pit lanes and garages, and out on to the circuits of the world's greatest race tracks. We spend time with drivers, mechanics, executives, sponsors, commentators and fans, and take in many personal moments too, all the while grappling with the big challenges and small details that keep the wheels of a Formula 1 team turning.

Told in his inimitable style, packed with hugely entertaining stories, outspoken opinions and unvarnished truths, this is Guenther at his very best – insightful, opinionated and completely unfiltered.

Gabby Harnett is believed by many to be the greatest catcher of all time. This work chronicles Hartnett's life from his early years in Millville, Massachusetts, through his twenty-year career with the Chicago Cubs as player and manager, his time in various capacities in the minor leagues and with the New York Giants and Kansas City Athletics, to his post-major league career as a businessman in Chicago. His childhood, early baseball experiences with the local team and with a nearby prep school, and his first professional baseball season with the Worcester Boosters of the Eastern League are covered in detail. Hartnett's major league career as the catcher for the Cubs is well-documented, including his near career-ending arm injury in 1929, the 1932 World Series that featured Babe Ruth's legendary ""called shot,"" and Hartnett's famous ""homer in the gloamin"" against the Pittsburgh Pirates that propelled Chicago to the 1938 National League pennant. The author also compares Hartnett's statistics to those of his famous contemporaries, Mickey Cochrane and Bill Dickey, on a year-by-year basis.

A moving and lyrical memoir about life, love and loss, from a true giant of Gaelic games. In a frenetic seven-year spell at the outset of his senior managerial career, Mickey Harte led Tyrone to four Ulster Championships and three All-Irelands. It was a run that shifted football's balance of power, changed the way the game would be played for over a generation, and cemented his reputation as one of the most transformative figures in GAA history. Then, in January 2011, the visitation of a shocking tragedy changed everything: Mickey's daughter Michaela was murdered while on honeymoon in Mauritius, and the Harte family, grief-stricken, awoke to find themselves at the centre of an international news story. Devotion, the product of a collaboration between Mickey and author Brendan Coffey, is many things. The story of a family's decade-long struggle to come to terms with an almost unimaginable loss. A meditation on the ways in which faith, community, and sport can sustain us in our most difficult moments. And, finally, a portrait of one of Irish sport's true icons, as he brings one legendary era to a close and steels himself for a final assault on the history books

There has never been a fighter like Billy Conn. Handsome as a movie star and tough as a junkyard dog, Conn threw combinations with the beauty and speed of later masters Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. The kid from the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh began boxing professionally at age 16, as his manager Johnny Ray fed him older, more experienced pros in a "baptism of fire." Conn developed quickly. At age 19 and 20 he defeated most of the world's best middleweights, a division rich with talent. Still growing, by age 21 he won the world light-heavyweight title. After dominating that division, he sought greater challenge in the heavyweight division. He beat three of the best heavyweights, one by knockout and two by easy decision. Only one challenge remained - the great heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Their first fight remains one of boxing's all-time classics, ranked by some as the greatest fight ever. Conn's story transcends boxing. He pursued and eloped with the love of his life, the beautiful Mary Louise Smith, despite her father's vehement and public opposition. Conn and his father-in-law tangled in a chaotic brawl at a lavish christening party at the Smith home. Billy starred in a Hollywood movie, The Pittsburgh Kid, and developed friendships with big stars like Bob Hope, Robert Taylor, and Frank Sinatra. Through all the glamour Billy remained the unpretentious "kid" from gritty Pittsburgh, the city he loved. He became an icon of that city, of the downtrodden Depression-era working class, and of the American Irish. Conn's place in boxing and American folk history has been neglected and forgotten in recent decades. His story of a poor kid with talent and spirit who went for it all is one worth reading.

African Americans and Latino Americans have played an increasingly significant role in the ongoing saga of American sports-and not just in popular sports like basketball and baseball. This is the first comprehensive, multisport biographical resource to concentrate exclusively on the accomplishments, achievements, and personal struggles of notable African American and Latino American athletes of the last quarter century. A total of 175 important contemporary athletes-113 African Americans and 62 Latino Americans-are profiled. Most made significant contributions to their sport since 1990. Athletes include Roberto Alomar, Oscar De La Hoya, Forence Griffith Joyner, Evander Holyfield, Michael Johnson, Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Ray Lewis, Sammy Sosa, Serena and Venus Williams, Tiger Woods, and many more. Eighteen sports, from baseball to bobsledding, are covered. The profiles of the men and women include personal background information and athletic career achievements through 2002. Each athletic career is traced, including entrance into sport, major accomplishments, records set, awards and honors, and overall impact. Quotations from the athletes enrich each profile. Bibliographies and photos complement the entries.