Dangerous Games: Australia at the 1936 Nazi Olympics

Author(s): Larry Writer

War

'Larry Writer has delivered a gem in Dangerous Games.' - Roland Perry, author of Bill the Bastard..'Writer has faithfully recreated the 1936 Olympics - the most controversial in history.' - Harry Gordon, author of Australia and the Olympic Games..This is a tale of innocents abroad. Thirty-three athletes left Australia in May 1936 to compete in the Hitler Olympics in Berlin. Believing sporting competition was the best antidote to tyranny, they put their qualms on hold. Anything to be part of the greatest show on earth...Dangerous Games drops us into a front row seat at the 100,000-capacity Olympic stadium to witness some of the finest sporting performances of all time - most famously the African American runner Jesse Owens, who eclipsed the best athletes the Nazis could pit against him in every event he entered. The Australians, with their antiquated training regimes and amateur ethos, valiantly confronted the intensely focused athletes of Germany, the United States and Japan. Behind the scenes was cut- throat wheeling and dealing, defiance of Hitler, and warm friendships among athletes...What they did and saw in Berlin that hot, rainy summer influenced all that came after until their dying days.


Product Information

A team of thirty-three Australian athletes competed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Poorly prepared and with limited support, they bravely faced formidable competition. Larry Writer recreates their experience so vividly we can imagine ourselves in the famous stadium surrounded by swastikas.

Larry Writer is an award-winning author with an interest in sport, history and crime.

Prologue: The Wattle and the Swastika..1 Berlin Wins the Games..2 On Your Marks..3 The Class of '36..4 Darkness Descending..5 Amateur Hour..6 Boycott Berlin!..7 All at Sea..8 Into Hitler's Lair..9 Bells, Whistles and the Reich Sports Field..10 Settling in..11 Innocents Abroad..12 Olympic Countdown..13 The Opening Ceremony..14 Days of Grace and Fury..15 The Dying Flame..16 Behind the Mask..17 Sifting the Wreckage..18 Finish Lines..Epilogue..Acknowledgements..Bibliography..Index

General Fields

  • : 9781743319383
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : 0.473
  • : June 2015
  • : 234mm X 153mm
  • : Australia
  • : July 2015
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Larry Writer
  • : Paperback
  • : Main
  • : 796.480994
  • : 352
  • : 2 x 8pp bw pictures