Simon and Schuster, July 2008
Broadcast both on television and online, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will receive more than all U.S. coverage of previous Summer Games combined. Six television channels will showcase the events for a total of eighty-two hours a day, and NBC will have a staff of nearly three thousand to run and support its twelve hundred high-definition cameras.
With all of the media-frenzy surrounding the modern Olympics, it's hard to think about what sports were like before they could be watched from the comfort of one's own couch.
In his newest book, Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Maraniss takes us to the beginning of the Olympic Games as we know them today. In Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World, Maraniss looks at how the first commercially televised Olympic Games did much more than entertain an international audience. As Maraniss explains, the sporting arena-and then the television screen-became a stage upon which nations waged battles of racial, cultural, and political significance.
Maraniss winds his story around eighteen days in 1960 when the Olympics were held in Rome. Television, drugs, and sponsorship money were just breaking onto the scene, and the cold war was well underway. Although Germany competed as a unified team, the Berlin Wall was erected in the months following the Games. Maraniss reminds his readers of the political and historical context underlying athletic competition at its highest level, and in doing do, he creates a story that is about much more than any single athlete's path to success.
Broadcast both on television and online, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will receive more than all U.S. coverage of previous Summer Games combined. Six television channels will showcase the events for a total of eighty-two hours a day, and NBC will have a staff of nearly three thousand to run and support its twelve hundred high-definition cameras.
With all of the media-frenzy surrounding the modern Olympics, it's hard to think about what sports were like before they could be watched from the comfort of one's own couch.
In his newest book, Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Maraniss takes us to the beginning of the Olympic Games as we know them today. In Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World, Maraniss looks at how the first commercially televised Olympic Games did much more than entertain an international audience. As Maraniss explains, the sporting arena-and then the television screen-became a stage upon which nations waged battles of racial, cultural, and political significance.
Maraniss winds his story around eighteen days in 1960 when the Olympics were held in Rome. Television, drugs, and sponsorship money were just breaking onto the scene, and the cold war was well underway. Although Germany competed as a unified team, the Berlin Wall was erected in the months following the Games. Maraniss reminds his readers of the political and historical context underlying athletic competition at its highest level, and in doing do, he creates a story that is about much more than any single athlete's path to success.
But that is not to say that Maraniss avoids delving into the personal histories of the athletes who tasted their first bit of commercial success in Rome. There were many shining stars, and Maraniss recreates them as lively, complex characters.
Women's track coach Ed Temple and the Tigerbelles of Tennessee are the first people we're introduced to in this story, and readers will find themselves cheering for this team of runners all the way to their gold medal relay performance in Rome. During a time when it was thought unladylike to run more than 800 meters, coach Ed Temple declared that he wanted a team of "foxes not oxes," so the Tigerbelles showed up at races with their hair combed and curled, and their standout team member Wilma Rudolph graced the world.
By the time Wilma Rudolph reached the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, she had overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. As a child, she had suffered from polio that crippled her left leg and forced her to limp around in heavy leg braces for many years. After years of weekly treatments in a clinic in Nashville, the teenage Rudolph made up for the lost time and blossomed as a basketball player and runner.
Women's track coach Ed Temple and the Tigerbelles of Tennessee are the first people we're introduced to in this story, and readers will find themselves cheering for this team of runners all the way to their gold medal relay performance in Rome. During a time when it was thought unladylike to run more than 800 meters, coach Ed Temple declared that he wanted a team of "foxes not oxes," so the Tigerbelles showed up at races with their hair combed and curled, and their standout team member Wilma Rudolph graced the world.
By the time Wilma Rudolph reached the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, she had overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. As a child, she had suffered from polio that crippled her left leg and forced her to limp around in heavy leg braces for many years. After years of weekly treatments in a clinic in Nashville, the teenage Rudolph made up for the lost time and blossomed as a basketball player and runner.
In Rome, Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals and became one of the most influential figures in sport. When she returned home, Rudolph was invited to meet with President Kennedy, and she refused to attend a banquet in her hometown unless it was integrated. In her honor, it was.
Besides the moving story of Wilma Rudolph, Rome 1960 brings many other memorable athletes to life. The boxer Cassius Clay-who would later become the world-famous Muhammad Ali-was a cocky eighteen year old who annoyed his fellow athletes with his incessant boasting and immature antics, such as parading around the Olympic village wearing his gold medal.
Besides the moving story of Wilma Rudolph, Rome 1960 brings many other memorable athletes to life. The boxer Cassius Clay-who would later become the world-famous Muhammad Ali-was a cocky eighteen year old who annoyed his fellow athletes with his incessant boasting and immature antics, such as parading around the Olympic village wearing his gold medal.
Maraniss also brilliantly captures the intense athletic rivalry between decathletes Rafer Johnson and his training partner and close friend C.K. Yang, who competed for Taiwan. The story of a virtually unknown and shoeless marathon runner named Abebe Bikila infuses passion and hope against all odds into this book and will remain one of the tales that readers find themselves thinking about long after they've turned the final page.
Such inspirational stories gathered in this book have the ability to stir readers on their own, but Maraniss has an expert way of bringing them together. He creates tension and drama without overdoing it, and his knowledge of history and politics makes the best moments in this book shimmer brighter than the gold medal dangling from a winning athlete's neck.
Such inspirational stories gathered in this book have the ability to stir readers on their own, but Maraniss has an expert way of bringing them together. He creates tension and drama without overdoing it, and his knowledge of history and politics makes the best moments in this book shimmer brighter than the gold medal dangling from a winning athlete's neck.
