And if you would you like to add any other Olympic-themed books that you know of, then please use the Comments Box below to notify us - let's try and build up a comprehensive list.
Cox by Kate Lacehttp://www.tripfiction.com/Book/2249
Rowing. Dan, Rollo and Amy. In a boat Dan and Rollo row perfectly together, but on land they despise each other. So with the addition of Amy to the mix, sporting behaviour is the last thing on their mind. May the best man win? Not a chance. From Henley Regatta to the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, and finally to the biggest race of their lives,the Olympics, their determination to settle old scores threatens to capsize everyone's plans.
Gold by Chris Cleave
http://www.tripfiction.com/Book/2146
Cycling. This book opens at the 2004 Olympic Games with Zoe about to race for gold in the Women's Sprint Cycling event. Three GB cyclists, Kate, Jack and Zoe who go back years. Kate and Zoe are rivals. This is the world of the Olympic cycling athlete, preparing for London 2012. But it is so much more than cycling!
The Fastest Loser by Gideon A Mailer http://www.tripfiction.com/Book/2250After witnessing the senseless deaths at the Munich Olympic Village in 1972, Herman aims to find sporting heroes, with different nationalities and ethnicities, who are willing to conceive and raise a child. In essence, to make new life from love and bridge ethnic divides. What better place to do so than in the Olympic Village, a place where the world's youth assemble in their sexual and athletic prime. "What a great novel! It makes me wish I were back in the Village!"
Can I mention my Olympic-inspired novella - Olympic Flames by Emma Lee-Potter
ReplyDeleteMimi Carter is the youngest member of the British showjumping team for London 2012. Fiercely competitive and a brilliant rider, she’s desperate to win an Olympic gold medal in front of her home crowd. But as injury threatens and an enigmatic old flame arrives back on the show jumping circuit, can she put her feelings to one side and realise her dream? And can she win her man and a gold medal for her country - all in the same day?
This sparkling romantic novella mixes love, horses and the Olympic Games to create a story that is moving, funny and inspiring - and is sure to keep you hooked until the very last word.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympic-Flames-ebook/dp/B0082M9B2Q/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_img_1
Brilliant, thank you. What a great combination, horses and Olympics, we have added it to our site http://www.tripfiction.com/Book/2260
ReplyDeleteThere is a factual piece on the racy goings on in the Olympic Village on
ReplyDeletehttp://espn.go.com/oly/conversations/_/id/8133052/athletes-spill-details-dirty-secrets-olympic-village-espn-magazine
I was struck how this article confirmed in some uncanny detail (albeit in a different tone) what I had read as creative licence in the Fastest Loser.
Just some of the parallels:
The heroine is a sassy adolescent female gymnast, who makes her first appearance in the dining hall, where the main character, a sports physiotherapist, revels at the way he can strike up conversations and created “associations” with people in this special environment.
But it is one of the commenters on the espn piece who unwittingly hits on the controversial theme of the novel when he says: “They should all reproduce with members of the same sport.. This way their kids will be even better then them and the Olympics will continually get better every year! Natural Selection at it's finest.”
If you read the blurb on the Fastest Loser link above you will see what I mean.
Finally, the author (disclosure – he has family ties to me) was told he risked jeopardising his reputation as a serious academic by writing about sexual shenanigans in this way. I told him I couldn't see why anyone should take it that way, as the evocation of the sphere the characters inhabit is of a magical Wonderland.
And lo, these are exactly the words I see used by the writer of the espn piece: The Olympic Village, he says, is "just a magical, fairy-tale place, like Alice in Wonderland”!
(Anyway, Love Story never hurt Harvard Classics prof, Eric Segal!)
Talk about racy! I read somewhere that 150,000 condoms are being transported into the Olympic Village....
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