What does it mean to be a hero-in sports and in life?

Heroes aren't just the ones who bring home medals. Hero Redefined delves into the lesser-known stories of Olympic athletes-and a couple of special Olympic venues-that challenge the conventional narrative of glory and gold. In riveting personal profiles exploring herculean feats of strength, perseverance, and sportsmanship, award-winning sports journalist Doug Levy offers a new vision of heroism. There is more than one path to greatness, and the extraordinary acts of resilience and personal sacrifice by these athletes have left an indelible mark on the spirit of the Olympic games in quiet but fundamental ways through the ages.

Each chapter reveals a different face of heroism-immense resilience, strength of character, unparalleled sportsmanship, an incredible zeal to compete, and a seemingly superhuman will to finish. Throughout, Levy celebrates the heroic human spirit and its relentless drive to carry the torch forward-both inside and outside of the Olympic Games.

With its winning mix of gripping narrative and easy-to-implement performance-raising tips, this book has become a best-selling classic. It's garnered 5-star reviews and wide-ranging endorsements - from Sebastian Coe and Dame Kelly Holmes to Lord Digby Jones. The book tells the inspiring story of how Ben Hunt-Davis - an ordinary guy in an ordinary team - achieved something pretty extraordinary: Olympic Gold. Co-author Harriet Beveridge, Executive Coach, then gives a simple, engaging account of how we can apply these strategies to raise our own game... in sport, in business and in life.

Building on the huge success of the original, this second edition includes two completely new chapters - on high performance conversations and performance under pressure - as well as a general update, based on the successes readers and businesses have reaped from the first edition. In the book's signature, down to earth and practical style, the new chapters unlock simple ways for readers to thrive in their own pressured environments, and to communicate in ways which consistently improve results.

Whether you are a business leader looking to achieve a compelling vision, an individual with a dream, or a coach supporting others to unlock their potential...this book is jam-packed with tried and tested methods to help you achieve your own 'gold medal'.

Using fifty puzzles from real-life games, What's Your Call? presents the essentials of curling strategy in an easy-to-understand, enjoyable format. Far from the stuffy coaching of old, this is not your run-of-the-mill curling manual! Instead, you'll view an actual game situation, decide what shot you would call - then scan the QR code with your phone to watch what the pro Skip actually played. Following each puzzle, the guys discuss the key lessons that apply to both club and competitive play.

You'll learn about

• The Fundamentals of Strategy
• The Three Golden Questions of Skipping
• Choking Guards
• Wing Nullifiers
• the Come to Momma Defence,
• the Chicken Little, One-in-the-Bank and Go Big or Go Home Offences

and many, many more principles that apply to all levels of curling.

It's an interactive cheat sheet - breaking down the basics of curling tactics and strategy, isolating fundamental principles and helping you move up the skipping learning curve - fast! It also includes a Strategy Primer to help you get going. If you're an aspiring curler trying to improve your game, this guide is for you.

For years the world has followed Michael Phelps's progress from teen sensation in Sydney to bona fide phenom in Athens. Now he's a living Olympic legend in Beijing with a peerless record of gold medals. In No Limits, Michael Phelps--the greatest competitor since Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods--will share the secrets to his remarkable success. Behind his tally of Olympic gold medals lies a consistent approach to competition, a determination to win, mental preparation, and a straightforward passion for his sport. One of his mottos is Performance is Reality, and it typifies his attitude about swimming.

No Limits goes behind the scenes to explore the hard work, sacrifice, and dedication that catapulted Phelps into the international spotlight. Phelps shares remarkable anecdotes about family, his coach, his passion for the sport, and the wisdom that he has gained from unexpected challenges and obstacles. Highlighting memorable races and valuable lessons from throughout his career, Phelps offers candid insight into the mind and experiences of a world champion. Phelps's success is imbued with the perspective of overcoming obstacles and doing whatever it takes to realize a dream. As his coach, Bob Bowman, says, Phelps has made a habit out of things other people aren't willing to do. No Limits will show readers just how he does that, and will inspire anyone to follow their passion straight to the finish line.

Legendary athletes and stirring events are interwoven into a suspenseful narrative of sports and politics at the Rome games, where cold-war propaganda and spies, drugs and sex, money and television, civil rights and the rise of women superstars all converged to forever change the essence of the Olympics.

Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, maraniss reveals the rich palette of character, competition, and meaning that gave rome 1960 its singular essence.

'Athletes first' is a slogan the International Olympic Committee often touts, but the reality is very different, as pre-eminent Olympics expert Jules Boykoff shows in this book. While the world's attention is riveted by the triumphs and tribulations on their screens, there is much that goes on behind the scenes that is deeply troubling: athletes are increasingly voicing concerns over physical, mental, and sexual abuse, and they are collectively expressing grievances around equity and human rights.

Outside the stadiums, problems range from the democratic deficit and corruption surrounding the awarding of the Games, to displacement of people and gentrification of neighbourhoods to make way for Olympic venues, to the environmental damage that Olympic construction inflicts and then tries to greenwash away.

Boykoff tells us that radical steps are required if the Games are to be fixed and only then will they be truly 'athletes first'.

Wheel Head tells the rousing story of David Kiley and the dramatic arc of adaptive sports over six-decades. Full of novel, innovative characters and uncharted storylines, Wheel Head is a history lesson in exploration of disability, elite sport, addiction and an everlasting faith.

Drawing on Kiley's various pioneering times and stories, writer Miles Thompson crafts a story of resilience, humor and gritty determination. The Kiley/Thompson team stay away from making Wheel Head a glorifying delve into everything David Kiley. The two instead are determined to tell Kiley's story in the truth as they know it and unearthed it.

[Dave Kiley] is the teacher who has lived the lessons and shares the knowledge so that others can understand that the power of one's own mind is a force to be reckoned with in any kind of adverse situation.

- Gerry Lopez, Trailblazing Big Wave Surfer-aka Mr. Pipeline, and Featured in the Film, The Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez

Dave Kiley is a true American success story. In my life I've had the privilege of meeting hundreds of influential people. Dave is at the top of the list! His contribution to men, women and children with disabilities has been endless. Dave's 'no limits' attitude has allowed him to build innovative adaptive sport programs across the country... not to mention his gold medals in THREE sports!

The great lesson of getting through tough times and moving forward exemplifies what Dave is about. He has taken a bad break in life and turned it into a life mission of service. His selfless example is truly inspirational! His story is truly a compelling read. The honor of knowing Dave for over 40 years has been a tremendous gift in my life. I hope people who get to hear his journey feel the same gift!

- Mike Scioscia, LA Dodgers Catcher, World Series Champion; LA Angels Manager, World Series Champion

David Kiley's story is not just about overcoming adversity, but about transforming it into triumph, leadership and a big give-back. Wheel Head captures the essence of an indomitable spirit who has left an indelible mark on the world of Paralympic sports.

- Alana Nichols, 5x Paralympian, 6x Medalist, and First Female to Win Gold in Winter/Summer Games

The essays collectively explore the shifting dynamics and power relations between the civic coalitions that pursue the Winter Olympics and the social movements that oppose their efforts. The contributors look at specific Games impacted by dissent and probe the issues that swirled around failed and withdrawn bids. In addition, contributions on the contemporary Olympics describe current or future bids while delving into the campaigns demanding host nations pay attention to economic, social, humanitarian, and environmental concerns.

A first-of-its-kind collection, Winters of Discontent profiles the wide range of activists and social movements that have organized against the Winter Olympics.

A PENETRATING, FASCINATING AND REMARKABLY SUSPENSEFUL NARRATIVE.
*David Guy
Chicago Tribune
In The Amateurs, David Halberstam once again displays the unique brand of reportage, both penetrating and supple, that distinguished his bestselling The Best and the Brightest and October 1964. This time he has taken for his subject the dramatic and special world of amateur rowing. While other athletes are earning fortunes in salaries and-or endorsements, the oarsmen gain fame only with each other and strive without any hope of financial reward.
What drives these men to endure a physical pain known to no other sport? Who are they? Where do they come from? How do they regard themselves and their competitors? What have they sacrificed, and what inner demons have they appeased? In answering these questions, David Halberstam takes as his focus the 1984 single sculls trials in Princeton. The man who wins will gain the right to represent the United States in the 84 Olympiad; the losers will then have to struggle further to gain a place in the two- or four-man boats. And even if they succeed, they will have to live with the bitter knowledge that they were not the best, only close to it.
Informative and compelling, The Amateurs combines the vividness of superb sportswriting with the narrative skills of a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent.
RIVETING.
*Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
The New York Times
A] MASTERFUL JOB . . . Maintains the suspense to the very last stroke . . . Halberstam makes us care about the four men, their disappointments and the brutal testing of their friendships.
*Dan Levin
Sports Illustrated

This summer, millions of Americans will tune into the Olympic Games, the largest and most popular sporting event in the world. Yet while it's easy to be fascinated by agile gymnasts, poised equestrians, and perfectly synchronized swimmers, few of us know the real width of a balance beam, the intricate regulations of dressage, or the origin of those crowd-pleasing legs-in-the-air swimming formations. Luckily, David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton have created this utterly thorough and always fun guide to the rules, strategy, and history of each sport. Originally timed to 2012 London Games, their book is every bit as useful for Rio de Janeiro in 2016. With witty, detailed descriptions and clever illustrations, How to Watch the Olympics will help anyone grasp handball, archery, wrestling, fencing, and every other Olympic event like a true pro.

Discover how the modern Games began, in an out-of-the-way Victorian English town named Much Wenlock. Long-discontinued Olympic sports like tug of war, firefighting, live pigeon shooting, and painting. (Picasso for the gold?) And the over-the-top, heroic exploits that make it all so thrilling--like the inspiring story of gymnast Shun Fujimoto who brought his team to victory while fighting through the pain of a broken knee. With hundreds of true stories and stunning photographs, it's a collection of sports yearns unlike any other.

Born in 1888 in what would soon be Oklahoma Territory, Jim Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation. After attending the Sac and Fox agency school and Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas, he transferred to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. At Carlisle he led the football team to victories over some of the nation's best college teams-Army, Navy, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska. In 1912 he participated in the Olympic Games in Stockholm, winning both the decathlon and pentathlon. It was then that King Gustav V of Sweden dubbed him the world's greatest athlete.

Between 1913 and 1919, Thorpe played professional baseball for the New York Giants, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Boston Braves. In 1915 he began playing professional football with the Canton (Ohio) Bulldogs. When the top teams were organized into the American Professional Football Association in 1920, Thorpe was named the first president of the organization, renamed the National Football League in 1922. Throughout his career he excelled in every sport he played, earning King Gustav's accolade many times over.

In a new preface, Wheeler and Florence Ridlon update Thorpe's story, drawing on research they have conducted in spearheading the effort to restore the athlete's Olympic medals and his first-place wins in the pentathlon and decathlon, taken from him when it was discovered he had played professional baseball during the summer before the games in Stockholm. The explanation for Thorpe's imprudence, as Wheeler and Ridlon show, has everything to do with poor advice from the coach he trusted, Glenn Pop Warner, and a corrupt Indian boarding school system. The preface also discusses Thorpe's work on the lecture circuit and in the motion picture business, as an actor and recruiter of other Native actors.

Against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, the 1980 Moscow Olympics was always going to be political.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wanted Australia's Olympic athletes to boycott the Games, in line with the USA, but many of the athletes had a different view and competed anyway.

Athletes were the victims - and most of them female.

According to Ford, who was Australia's first and founding member of the International Olympic Committee's Athletes Commission, that struggle is far from over.

In Turning the Tide, 800 metres Swimming Gold Medal winner, Michelle Ford, charts the highs and lows from the beaches of Sydney as a young girl with a dream, to the dizzy heights of Olympic swimming gold against the odds of Cold-War politics spilling into sport like poison.

Olympic boycotts, death threats, wilful blindness and misogyny coincided with the first and most ferocious, systematic, state-sponsored doping the world has ever witnessed.

As Paris prepares to host the 2024 Olympics, 100 years after the Modern Olympics founding father Pierre de Coubertin declared that Women have one task, that of the role of crowning the winner with garlands, an indifference to female athletes lives on.

In this roller-coaster account of courage and resilience in the Olympic realm, Turning the Tide is a manifesto for change.

This book tells the inspiring story of the 1984 U.S. men's Olympic volleyball team. After many years playing as underdogs, a maverick coach would take over and push the players to their physical and emotional limits. Their journey to the Olympics reveals the value of teamwork, never giving up, and trusting in an innovative style of leadership.

A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

The Games is best-selling sportswriter David Goldblatt's sweeping, definitive history of the modern Olympics. Goldblatt brilliantly traces their history from the reinvention of the Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio in 2016, revealing how the Olympics developed into a global colossus and highlighting how they have been buffeted by (and affected by) domestic and international conflicts. Along the way, Goldblatt reveals the origins of beloved Olympic traditions (winners' medals, the torch relay, the eternal flame) and popular events (gymnastics, alpine skiing, the marathon). And he delivers memorable portraits of Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt.