“All I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football”,
The Telegraph Book of the Olympics
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Martin Smith, Editor, London, Aurum, 2012. ISBN 978 184513 707 6
I loved this book!
The concept is simple – pick some of the contemporary reports on the Olympics and put them into a book. It starts with the 1908 Olympics and works through to the 2008 Olympics.
It is a book to read cover to cover or to pick and chose reports from. I started with events I had attended followed by events that I remembered. I was never disappointed.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and some of the writing does not stand the test of time. That is no criticism, just a comment on the unpredictable nature of the world. One example is the 1968 report under the heading “Fosbury is no flop”. The report tells of how Dick Fosbury won the gold medal “with his unique style, the Fosbury flop”. How could the writer have known that this “unique” style would become the only way to the high jump.
One of my favourite reports is of the run of Ian McCafferty in the 1972 Olympic 5,000 metres race. McCafferty’s performance did not please his wife who felt that her husband had run “like a flaming donkey” adding “Those months of staying in while he trained have all been in vain”.
The way the Telegraph reported on the 1972 massacre and the 1980 potential boycott is of great interest. Nothing better illustrates the change in the nature of sports writing that the account of Mary Peters’ gold medal in 1972 where Miss Peters beat Miss Rosendhal and Miss Pollak to win gold.
An excellent read and worthy of a place in any Olympic collection.