Showing results for "Olympics" in All Categories

The number one New York Times best-selling story about American Olympic triumph in Nazi Germany, the inspiration for the PBS documentary The Boys of '36, broadcast to coincide with the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 80th anniversary of the boys' gold medal race. Out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times - the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.

Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after.

On the surface, young Charles had it all: high-society parents, a place at an exclusive New York City prep school, summer vacations in the Adirondacks. But the scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety thanks to a sadistic father who mired the family in bankruptcy and scandal before abandoning Charles and his mother altogether. Charles’s only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique—until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches.

In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and storm troopers looming, an African-American son of sharecroppers set three world records and won an unprecedented four gold medals, single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics Games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a performance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man.

On July 27, 1996, a hapless former cop turned hypervigilant security guard named Richard Jewell spotted a suspicious bag in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, the town square of the 1996 Summer Games. Inside was a bomb, the largest of its kind in FBI and ATF history. Minutes later, the bomb remotely detonated by the attacker amid a crowd of 50,000 people. But thanks to Jewell, it only killed two and wounded 111, not the hundreds who authorities estimated could have otherwise died. With the eyes of the world on Atlanta, the games continued.

In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona.

American Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage, unmoved by the new Nazi regime's anti-Jewish doctrines, leads the fight to participate in the 1936 Berlin Games after much debate of a U.S. boycott. Brundage desperately wants to be on the International Olympic Committee. If he doesn't get the Americans to Berlin, he can kiss that dream goodbye.

As an Olympic rookie, Andie Foster has spent far more time in her cleats than between the sheets. For 21 years, her Friday nights have consisted of blocking shots rather than taking them. But now that she's landed in Rio, she's ready to see for herself if the rumors about the Olympic Village are true: The athletes are all sex-crazed maniacs....As Andie walks the line between rumor and reality, she's forced into the path of Frederick Archibald, a decorated Olympic swimmer and owner of a sexy British accent.

An unexpected guest turns up in Port Townsend for Thanksgiving dinner at the O’Connell Compound. Edward, the eldest brother, has cast aside his Roman collar and arranged for an extended stay in a hotel. In his youth, he sowed some impressive wild oats. Joining the priesthood meant turning his back not only on his checkered past but also his worldly family.

In the early 1980s, a golden generation of volleyball players joined the U.S. men's national team. With the Olympics coming to Los Angeles in 1984, the pressure was on to build a winning program around these exceptional athletes. In If Gold Is Our Destiny, Sean P. Murray shares the incredible story of how a group of free-spirited players and their demanding coach captured the heart of a nation and became one of the greatest indoor volleyball teams of all time.

"I am Unnamed. My title is dead." In the World, the Planet, and the Base, it's either be number one or die. The alternative to dying, however, is to become an Unnamed. Turning eighteen means that you will compete for your name. Come out on top, you get a name and continue to the next two stages. Don't win, become one of the Unnamed. And no one knows what happens to the Unnamed. Running is easy for the Runner. He's been doing it since he was five. Easy, until things start happening, abnormal things. People aren't finishing their races. Others are acting strange. Easy, until the Runner has to...

When a scandal threatens mountain bike champion Ryder Bennett’s career, he’s forced to rely on a public relations makeover by a woman who doesn’t want anything to do with him. After all, he’s the man who broke her heart. But Addison Carrington’s willing to salvage his career if the payoff proves that she’s ready to takeover her family’s agency. There’s only one problem—he’s not the jerk she believed he was all those years ago. Nor can she deny the heat flaring between them. Can they keep things strictly professional, or will they risk causing another super sexy scandal ...

Welcome, boys and girls, listeners of all ages, to the first-ever Library Olympics! Kyle and his teammates are back, and the world-famous game maker Luigi Lemoncello is at it again! This time Mr. Lemoncello has invited teams from all across America to compete in the first-ever Library Olympics. But something suspicious is going on...books are missing from Mr. Lemoncello’s library. Is someone trying to censor what the kids are reading? Now it’s not just a game—can Mr. Lemoncello find the real defenders of books and champions of libraries?

When Samantha Moon is hired on by a film crew to help hunt for the most elusive creature of them all, she’s pretty sure they have the wrong person. Turns out this is a super well-funded expedition, and the eccentric backer is sparing no expense, including hiring, among dozens of other specialists, a private investigator—someone trained to find the missing. And there is nothing more missing than Bigfoot. The logic almost makes sense to Sam. But the money is right and the vampire private eye finds herself intrigued. After all, even among her fellow supernaturals, the creature known as ...

Leaps, turns, and handsprings are hard enough, but when a beam is added, difficulty is maximized. In this book, gymnasts will learn the best tips and tricks to conquering the balance beam.

Katie Ledecky has won more individual Olympic races than any female swimmer in history. She is a three-time Olympian, a seven-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and a world record-holder in individual swimming events. Time and again, the question is posed to her family, her coaches, and to her—what makes her a champion? Now, for the first time, she shares what it takes to compete at an elite level.

In A Wrestling Life: The Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable, famed wrestler and wrestling coach Dan Gable tells engaging and inspiring stories of his childhood in Waterloo, Iowa; overcoming the murder of his sister as a teenager; his sports career from swimming as a young boy, to his earliest wrestling matches, through the 1972 Olympics; coaching at the University of Iowa from the Banachs to the Brands; life-changing friendships he made along the way; and tales of his family life off the mat.

When Omega figure skater Jeff and incognito Alpha Prince Henrik spend one steamy night together at the Olympics, they find themselves with a surprise pregnancy on their hands. Now, the star crossed lovers must decide what they want. Can Jeff give up his career in America for a family life in Sweden? Can closeted Prince Henrik come out to claim Jeff and their unborn child with a royal wedding? An Omega too famous to find love. As an Olympic figure skater, Jeff was known far and wide. He had no problem finding men to date, but finding men that wanted him for himself and not his fame? Not so ...

In 1975, a group of amazing women rowed their way to international success and glory, battling sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination. Among the members of the first international women's crew team - and one of the first women's teams anywhere - were Gail Pearson, the soft-spoken MIT professor who fought to win the political battles necessary for her team to succeed; lead rower Carie Graves, a statuesque bohemian from rural Wisconsin who dropped out of college and later became the most intense rower of the crew; and Lynn Stillman, a tiny 16-year-old, Californian coxswain.