"Lord, I don't ask that I should win, but please, please don't let me finish behind Akabusi."
Making history at London 2012
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Brendan Gallagher (Editor), Chicester, Wiley, 2012. ISBN 978-1119-97312-6
The book’s sub-title is 25 iconic moments of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and not surprisingly it consists of 25 chapters. It starts with the preparation for the games and also includes the torch relay but the meat of the book are chapters by some of the countries leading sportswriters, capturing what actually happened during the games.
The truly iconic moments are covered – Usain Bolt, Jess Ennis, Mo Farah and Ben Ainslie. It was also great to see David Weir’s paralympic exploits celebrated. There is the great human story of Kate Walsh’s shattered jaw bone, women’s boxing’s debut and other lesser known heros.
The chapters on GB rowing and the equestrian events in the section “Great Team Efforts” are further indications of the range of this excellent book. Unlike most of the souvenir issues this is neither a selection of images linked by a little text nor a rehash of newspaper articles which may or may not stand the test of time. This is a real book of purpose written chapters which capture the essence of the 2012 Games.