"Football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that."
The 100 greatest Olympians and Paralympians
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The 100 greatest Olympians and Paralympians, Nick Callow, London, Carlton, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84732-701-7
This is a fabulous coffee table book. The format is simple – features on 100 Olympians and Paralympians. Each feature is two pages with a career summary, two colour pictures and about 300 words of text. There are 8 pages of statistics and lists of winners at the back.
Part of the fun of these books is to compare your own selection with the author’s! All the expected superstars are there – Usain Bolt, Michael Johnson, Mark Spitz, Steve Redgrave, Ed Moses, Kelly Holmes etc. There are many from yesteryear that you may not have heard of. The book will educate you.
It also raised for me the issue of what is greatness. One definition of greatness is multiple or sustained success – Al Oerter discus gold at four successive Olympics, Steve Redgrave gold at five successive games, Mark Spitz seven swimming golds in one Olympics. But how do you compare that with Dick Fosbury – just one Olympic medal but he changed high jump for ever? Is Bob Beamon great because of one jump? Susi Susanti will be forever remembered in Indonesia because she won her country’s first ever gold medal but is that greatness? Your call!
Greatness can too be determined by the barriers you had to overcome to get to the top. Jesse Owens and his triumph against the racial odds in 1936 or Wilma Rudolph overcoming polio to win gold are two examples. If Merlene Ottey (now 51), who won medals in 1980, 84, 92, 96 and 2000 makes the 2012 Olympics – that would be true greatness. She ran in the 2010 European championships so don’t rule it out.
As a lover of trivia, I was interested to learn that:
Rebecca Addlington has had a pub named after her;
Valery Borzov was so relaxed before his race that he fell asleep and nearly missed it!
I was amused to learn how Nadia Comeneci was too good for the scoreboard. When she scored a perfect 10, the scoreboard could not cope as there was only space for one figure!
I read with interest how Betty Cuthbert felt lead by God to resume her career and win another gold medal.
It is a book to read and a book to return to for more fascinating stories and facts.