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Thomi Keller: A Life in Sport (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R528
Discovery Miles 5 280
You Save: R55
(9%)
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Thomi Keller: A Life in Sport (Hardcover)
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List price R583
Loot Price R528
Discovery Miles 5 280
You Save R55 (9%)
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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Thomi Keller's place in rowing's pantheon is beyond dispute. A
talented oarsman whose hopes of winning an Olympic medal were
dashed when Switzerland didn't attend the 1956 Games, he went on to
preside over FISA, the sport's international federation, for more
than thirty years. During a turbulent and fast-changing era marked
by Cold War politics and sport's incipient commercialisation, he
substantially modernised both rowing and its governing body,
resolutely putting the athlete first. Yet Keller's influence
extended far beyond his own sport. By convincing other sports
leaders of the benefits of working together, he forged the
international federations into a force that the International
Olympic Committee - custodians of the world's most diverse and
spectacular sporting event - had no choice but to respect. At the
height of his powers, in the late 1970s, he arguably wielded more
influence among fellow sports leaders than the IOC president
himself. Though ultimately outmaneuvered by the IOC's Juan Antonio
Samaranch, who identified and harnessed the Olympics' commercial
power, Keller remained a revered figure until his death in 1989,
aged only sixty-four. Thirty years on he is still, as one
obituarist put it, "the outstanding figure in the history of
international rowing". While the sporting world Keller inhabited
has since been transformed by the cash that has gushed in from
broadcasters and sponsors, his essential message - that fair
competition and athlete wellbeing must come first - remains today
as relevant as ever. Drawing on exclusive access to contemporary
documents and the reminiscences of those who knew Keller, the
award-winning sportswriter David Owen has written the first
full-length biography of one of the most important and charismatic
sports leaders of the twentieth century.
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