A French athlete with the Olympic Torch in Paris.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images
The Olympic Games have not attracted writers in the manner individual Olympic sports have. That’s not surprising. You can be a fan of golf (John Updike) or tennis (David Foster Wallace) or wrestling (John Irving) or boxing (Joyce Carol Oates) or football (Eduardo Galeano) and write about these with passion and insight. The Olympic canvas, however, is too large and too varied for that kind of writing. There has to be a necessary pruning.
Books on the Olympic Games can be divided into: history (including books on specific Games like the 1960, 1896 or 1972 editions); biographies and autobiographies; the dark side of the Games; a single event or a theme (The Dirtiest Race in History, about the Johnson-Lewis 100m final); stories of overcoming the odds; the political and economic impact of the Games; and finally, fiction.
For long, every four years, the standard reference was David Wallechinsky’s The Complete Book of the Olympics, but the last edition was in 2016, and it hasn’t found a successor.
Here are some books on the Olympics you might enjoy:
1. ‘The Games: A Global History of the Olympics’ (2016) by David Goldblatt
An enjoyable read which by extension tells the story of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Olympics may be about sport; it is equally about politics and history, and is better understood in the larger context. The Games did not become a spectacle till the 1930s. In 1932, Los Angeles introduced the three-tiered podium, and national anthems. Four years later, in Berlin, came the torch relay. As the runners approached the stadium, they became “exclusively blond-haired and blue-eyed Aryans”, says the author.
2. ‘Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August’ (2016) by Oliver Hilmes
An intriguing romp through ‘Hitler’s Games’ with a wide cast of characters, and written in the form of a diary with novelistic flair. The research is extensive, and we learn of such transformations as that of the writer Thomas Wolfe who began as an admirer of the German state before turning sceptic. A final chapter detailing what became of those in the book is fascinating.
3. ‘A Shot At History’ (2011) by Abhinav Bindra, with Rohit Brijnath
A riveting book combining the inspiring tale of India’s first gold medallist with the cautionary tale of India’s officialdom where apathy is a guiding light. The book is the story of two journeys — one physical, to championships and training around the world, and the other internal, through self-doubt, self-awareness, and a zen-like acceptance of things as they are.
4. ‘The Ancient Olympics’ (2004) by Nigel Spivey
An antidote to the over-romanticising of the modern Games with its relationship to the ancient ones. The notion of participation which is placed above winning is dispelled here by the all-encompassing obsession with winning. The word ‘athletics’ is derived from the Greek verb ‘to struggle for a prize’. There was no prize for the runner-up. The Games were, Spivey says, “a notoriously squalid experience for athletes and spectators alike”. Instructive and entertaining.
5. ‘The Other Olympians’ (2024) by Michael Waters
In 1935, one of Europe’s most famous women athletes declared she was now a man. This history of sex and gender in the Olympics, of crude ‘sex tests’ — and the continuum till the present-day unsatisfactory ones — traces the evolution of what we like to think of as a modern issue. “Today many people understand that sex and gender are two separate categories: gender is a psychological and socialised identity, while sex is assigned, often at birth, based on your physical body,” says the author.
6. ‘The Lords of the Rings: Power, Money, and Drugs in the Modern Olympics’ (1992) by Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings
The title says it all.
7. ‘The Secret Olympian’ (2012) by Anon
Probably written by a member of Britain’s squad at the 2004 Athens Olympics, it answers the questions many of us ask: what does it really mean to be an Olympian? A behind-the-scenes look at the Games. The Village isn’t all that great. Yes, the condom machines ran out of stuff at Sydney, but only because they were free and athletes hoped to sell them as souvenirs when they got back home.
8. ‘The Boys in The Boat’ (2013) by Daniel James Brown
The inspiring story of working class boys growing up in the American Depression, finding solace in rowing and making it to the Olympics. And winning gold. One reviewer called it “Chariots of Fire with oars…”. The movie appeared last year.
9. ‘Circus Maximus’ (2015) by Andrew Zimbalist
Should India get serious about the 2036 bid? This study by a sports economist shows how we need to give it a second, third and fourth thoughts. Zimbalist asks: “Why should it be necessary to spend tens of billions of dollars to host an event to get hundreds of millions of dollars of worthwhile investment?”
10. ‘Asterix at the Olympic Games’ (1972) by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
Fiction. The magic potion is illegal, so how does Asterix win?
The writer’s latest book is ‘Why Don’t You Write Something I Might Read?’.