The Rodchenkov Affair by Grigory Rodchenkov

$35.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Can one man take down an empire? THE PROTOCOL is a breathtaking real-life political thriller. As a leading chemical scientist and Director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Dr Grigory Rodchenkov was at the forefront of global efforts to detect drugs cheats in sport. Yet he was simultaneously runnin g the most elaborate doping scheme in history, helping thousands of athletes and elite players evade detection. Then the cracks started to show, and Vladimir Putin sent him a chilling message . . . Icarus, the Oscar-winning Netflix film, followed Grigory Rodchenkov as he turned whistleblower, fled Russia and entered the US Witness Protection Programme. In this explosive memoir he reveals how everything he has exposed so far -- leading to Russia's double Olympic bans - is merely the tip of the iceberg. Drawn from diaries, official e-mails and memos smuggled out of Russia, The Protocol is the full story by the one man the Kremlin hoped would never talk about its quest to win at all costs. 'I am a patriot, yet I am a traitor. I am one of the reasons my country has won so many Olympic medals over the last decade, yet I am also the reason they are banned from the Olympics. I am a devoted husband and father, yet I have seen neither my wife or my children in two years. If you read the news, you will see that my name is everywhere, yet I myself am nowhere. I am known throughout Russia, yet I am a ghost. Living anonymously in an anonymous town, under the protection of the US government, in fear from my life, somewhere in America - the one country I tried my hardest to help my country beat, year after year, decade after decade' ...Show more

Icons of Footy by Kevin Sheedy

$33.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Great Australian Sporting Stories by Ian Heads; Norman Tasker

$35.00 AUD

Category: Sport

'Heads and Tasker, legends themselves, set out to write a book that would continue the trail laid by early-days sporting scribes of long ago. I could not put it down.' JOHN COATES AC, PRESIDENT OF THE AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE 'I know readers will enjoy the many stories and anecdotes that Heads and Tasker have accumulated over more than a century combined in journalism.' IAN CHAPPELL, FORMER AUSTRALIAN CRICKET CAPTAIN Australia enjoys a rich sporting heritage. Our small population has yielded a disproportionate number of champions. These sports stars have become known worldwide as fierce combatants and honourable competitors, achieving soaring victories, but also heart-pounding near-wins and humbling defeats. Veteran Australian sports journalists Ian Heads and Norman Tasker have seen it all. In these 65 original stories, we hear of the explosive introduction of World Series Cricket in 1977, which turned a genteel endeavour into a high-octane contest, and the clash of the titans as Packer and Murdoch squared off over the Super League. We see rugby union become a battleground for race and the Olympics an arena for sublime acts of courage and achievement. We get an insider's perspective on every kind of sporting endeavour - from boxing to tennis, cricket to AFL, athletics to rugby league - and not just the action on the field, but the change room gossip and clubhouse politics as well. Written with wit, insight and a wealth of knowledge, Great Australian Sporting Stories is an enthralling expedition into the combative, collegiate, entertaining and always exciting world of Australian sport. ...Show more

Golden Daze (Australian Surfing Then to Now) by Sean Doherty

$45.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Australia's best surf writer brings to life the wild, bold, brave story of Australian surfing from the 60s to the present through the stories of Surfing Australia's Hall of Fame surfers and contemporary surfing legends. Golden Daze is a compelling memoir of Australian surfing through a year in the life of Australia's top surfers. Starting in 1963, renowned surfing journalist Sean Doherty charts the history of surfing through the stories of Surfing Australia's Hall of Fame inductees. Taking a year and a surfer at a time, he will reveal what they did, where they surfed and their life events in fascinating depth and detail. Illustrated with unpublished images from the surfers' private collections, these stories also give a vivid sense of the shifting world around them, particularly in the ever-changing realm of surfing. Golden Daze opens in 1963 with Peter Troy jumping ship in Melbourne with a surfboard under his arm, embarking on his fabled surfing odyssey that saw him introducing surfing to Brazil, being crowned European champion, hitching alone across the Kalahari Desert and watching an unknown band from Liverpool called the Beatles. 1964 is Midget Farrelly's story of winning the first world title on home sand at Manly Beach. In 1969 Wayne Lynch goes down the coast, avoiding the Vietnam draft. And in 1971, Alby Falzon stumbles upon the island of Bali while shooting his humble surf movie Morning of the Earth. The book brings to life the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and noughties through the eyes of the Australian surfers who defined them best, ending today with stories of potential Hall of Famers, contemporary stars like Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson and Tyler Wright. Part journal, part biography, part surf culture memoir, Golden Daze gives a fascinating insight into Australian surfing and what makes it so unique. ...Show more

Lofted: Remarkable & Farflung Adventures for the Modern Golfer by William Watt

$45.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Lofted puts a new spin on the widely played and loved game of golf--traversing the world in search of authentic golfing experiences.   A visual adventure for the modern golfer, Lofted will transport you far and wide through the world of golf. Lofted takes you on a journey of discovery with stunnin g photography and words featuring golf experiences across the globe, including classic courses in Wisconsin, the remote islands of Scotland's Outer Hebrides, a magical Malaysian course in a tropical paradise, the foothills of the Himalayas and the windswept King Island in the Bass Strait off the coast of Australia.   From the design of the bunkers and doglegged tees to the art of mindfulness in the great outdoors--the unexpected stories and images in Lofted will challenge your perceptions of golf.   ...Show more

After the Count by Stephanie Convery

$35.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Sydney boxer Davey Browne died in 2015 after being knocked out in the final round of a title fight that he was about to win. Compelling and criticial, this book is an investigation into Davey's death, together with Stephanie Convery's personal narrative about her own boxing story. Who is responsible whe n someone dies in the ring; the referee, the ringside doctor, the combat sports inspectors, the trainer? Are deaths like this inevitable in a sport where the only sure way to win is to knock your opponent out? Journalist Stephanie Convery has been following Davey's story for years, compelled by the complexities at its heart, and also because when she first heard about it she was training for her own debut amateur boxing contest. There is an inherent contradiction at the heart of boxing - people are attracted to it because it's violent, but don't want to talk about the repercussions of that violence. Stephanie writes about this beautifully, approaching it as a journalist, as a boxing fan, and as a boxer herself. She describes the power and confidence she gains from boxing - which comes explicitly from a place of knowing she can fight back, knowing that she can inflict harm if she needs to. But why aren't boxers, professional and amateur, told more about the potential for and repercussions of concussion and head trauma? There's something going on with boxing in our culture at the moment that's pushing it back into the mainstream, in a way it hasn't been for decades. ...Show more

Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig

$50.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Winner of the 2018 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing Winner of The Times Sports Biography of the Year "As Muhammad Ali's life was an epic of a life soAli: A Life is an epic of a biography . . . pages in succession its narrative reads like a novel--a suspenseful novel with a cast of vivid characters." - Joyce Carol Oates,New York Times Book Review   Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay in racially segregated Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a sign painter and a housekeeper. He went on to become a heavyweight boxer with a dazzling mix of power and speed, a warrior for racial pride, a comedian, a preacher, a poet, a draft resister, an actor, and a lover. Millions hated him when he changed his religion, changed his name, and refused to fight in the Vietnam War. He fought his way back, winning hearts, but at great cost.             Jonathan Eig, hailed by Ken Burns as one of America's master storytellers, sheds important new light on Ali's politics, religion, personal life, and neurological condition through unprecedented access to all the key people in Ali's life, more than 500 interviews and thousands of pages of previously unreleased FBI and Justice Department files and audiotaped interviews from the 1960s.Ali: A Lifeis a story about America, about race, about a brutal sport, and about a courageous man who shook up the world. ...Show more

Archie Jackson: Cricket's Tragic Genius by David Frith

$29.95 AUD

Category: Sport

David Frith's acclaimed biography of Archie Jackson, Australian cricket's doomed batting genius, still stands as the definitive account of a sporting life cut heartbreakingly short. When Frith's first iteration of this classic biography was published in 1974, in a limited edition, it became the rarest of publishing phenomenon: an award-winner and an immediate collector's item. In its foreword, England's legendary fast bowler, Harold Larwood, wrote of Archie Jackson: "You just had to find a place in your heart for a fellow like him." In this new edition, Archie Jackson - Cricket's Tragic Genius, Frith has revised and updated the story, adding precious new material gleaned during a lifelong of devotion to his subject. ...Show more

Anna Meares Now: Sometimes the End of the Race Is Only the Beginning by Anna Meares

$34.95 AUD

Category: Sport

From 2004 to 2016, Anna Meares was one of Australia's greatest and most popular Olympians, a winner of two gold medals and medals at four Olympics. She overcame a broken neck to win silver at the 2008 Beijing Games. She is an inspiration not just because of her sporting achievements, but for way she ans wered the potentially debilitating question faced by all retiring athletes: What happens now? Anna confronted personal crises, including the death of her coach from Motor Neurone Disease and a marriage breakup, and learned plenty as she first stumbled but now strides down a bright path. She has a new career, is a new mother and is happy in her personal life. Her sporting life is only part of this story. Her recent wins have added a new dimension to what has been a remarkable life. ...Show more

Cycling Paradises - 100 Bike Tours of the World's Most Breathtaking Places to Pedal by Claude Droussent

$50.00 AUD

Category: Sport

Dramatic and panoramic, these are the best routes to ride on two wheels whether you are a passionate newbie or a seasoned pro   Discover the best places to bike in this carefully curated guide to seeing the world on a bike. Organized by terrain - urban, mountain, on-road, scenic - each tour was c onstructed by leading French cycling expert Claude Droussent who co-founded "L' tape du Tour" which is an organized mass participation event that allows amateur cyclists to race over the same route as the Tour de France on the tour's official rest days.From family-friendly urban sightseeing tours to epic rides off the beaten track, the destinations featured here range from easy bike tours of Paris to more challenging adventures in diverse locales like Utah's Zion National Park, the Ecuadorean Andes, or Mt. Snowdonia in Wales. Included also are some of the world's favorite cycling destinations: Normandy's lush countryside, the historic Hudson River Trail, an exotic Phnom Penh-to-Laos trail along the Mekong River. Explore the hills of Tuscany with stops for regional cuisine and great art and architecture, or soak up the local color on the Bolivia-to-Peru loop along the shores of Lake Titicaca. Each tour comes fully illustrated including details about length, estimated duration, elevation, difficulty, and points of interest. ...Show more

Wild Ride: Epic Cycling Journeys Through the Heart of Australia by Daniel Oakman

$35.00 AUD

Category: Sport

This book tells the story of the cyclists who were overcome by the need to venture forth on two wheels; the courageous men and women who undertook some of the most epic bicycle journeys of all time. While many of Australia's bicycle pioneers rode to beat records or be the first, others rode for no other reason than to immerse themselves in the wild. They willingly surrendered themselves to their fate in a land at once majestic, magical and hostile. Fortunately for us these bicycle pioneers were not content to merely ride. They wanted to share their experience with other like-minded folk and Australian readers devoured their stories; heady accounts filled with unbridled wonder, drama and derring-do. The journeys retold in this book are a thrilling reminder of a period of exploration largely forgotten in the age of the motorcar. We might simply choose to enjoy these pioneering feats vicariously from the comfort of our armchairs. Or, we might be inspired to venture out on our own pedal powered explorations. At the very least, they will make our excuses to not go for a ride seem rather feeble indeed! ...Show more

Unstoppable by Maria Sharapova

$23.00 AUD

Category: Sport

To understand my determination, you need to know who I am, where I come from, what happened. You need to know about me and my father and the flight from Russia in the dead of night when I was six. You need to know the crazy story. In other words, you need to know everything . . . ' In the middle of the night, a father and his daughter step off a Greyhound bus in Florida and head straight to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. They ring the bell, though no one is expecting them and they don't speak English. They have arrived from Russia with just seven hundred dollars and the conviction that this six-year-old girl will be the world's next great tennis star. They are right. This is Maria Sharapova's gripping and fearless autobiography, telling her story from her roots in the small Siberian town her parents had fled to after the Chernobyl disaster, through her arrival in the US and her phenomenal rise to success - winning Wimbledon aged just seventeen - to the disasters that threatened her career and her fight back. Here the five-time Grand Slam winner gives us candid insights into her relationship with her father, who gave up his job and life in Russia to dedicate himself to his daughter; the truth behind her famous rivalry with Serena Williams; the injuries and suspension controversy that threatened to end it all. It's a story of of crazy luck, mistakes, rivalries, sacrifice, survival and, above all, the constant, unwavering determination to win. ...Show more