Olympics Tale (Tonight We Read Book 1)

Olympic figure skater who won bronze stabbed to death. Denis Ten, the first ever Kazakh skater to win an Olympic medal, has been killed at the age of The G2 interview 'I spoke from the heart': He refused to meet Mike Pence at the Winter Olympics — where he became a star.

A champion of gay rights, loved by Cher and Britney Spears, he talks about bravery and the backlash. Trump welcomes Winter Olympians at idiosyncratic reception. How things stood at the end of 18 days of competition in Pyeongchang, South Korea. My anti-hero Harry Kvist is an ex-boxer turned debt collector, so I wanted my writing to reflect the movements of boxing.

Michael Morpurgo launches Olympic storytelling programme

While maintaining the rhythm and pace of the story, I waited for the right moment to make a move. Whenever that moment emerged, I allowed the language to explode with something new, like an unusual metaphor, hopefully creating a fresh, unexpected twist.

My goal is to go high and low without disrupting the harmony, or flow, of the writing. Clinch is his first novel, and the first installment in the planned trilogy about Harry Kvist published in English by Pushkin Press. Probably something that is more arduous than it looks and which has ridiculously petty rules that you must take seriously—maybe speed walking, or curling, or modern pentathlon. Jon Day is a writer, academic and cyclist. He is a contributing editor of the Junket, an online quarterly, and he is a Man Booker Prize judge. If there is one, though, it would be soccer—absolutely—which often serves as a backdrop in crime fiction.

Running—running a marathon, that is. You run and run and run, but you never seem to arrive at the finish line. Your feet get sore and blistered, and, still, you run. You want to quit, but you know you have to finish because stopping would mean failing. Marc Pastor studied criminology and crime policy, and works as a crime-scene investigator in Barcelona.

He is the author of four novels: His work spans a range of genres, from Sci Fi to Gothic via the adventure novel. Barcelona Shadows , from Pushkin Press, is his first book published in English. Since I was a kid, I have always been amazed by gymnasts.

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I think it is in gymnastics that the pairing of art and sports, of grace and athleticism, becomes most evident. Gymnastics calls for a mixture between technique and spontaneity similar to that required by the arts. I will also be following closely a Puerto Rican athlete: Javier Culson, who four years ago won a bronze medal in meters with hurdles. I love, within track and field, sprint races, mainly because I like the idea of an athlete practicing for years in order to compete in a race that lasts less than a minute. There seems to me a poetic intensity in it: Both baseball and boxing have attracted the attention of Puerto Rican writers, as they are the two main sports practiced in the island, alongside basketball.

I remember thinking, without noticing exactly what that would mean for me, that the role of the narrator was central. Later, I would realize that narrators are a key component of sports broadcasting, and that writers have much to learn from them, from the way they are able to construct a communal horizon of expectations, fears, and illusions. More than once, I have thought that it would be interesting to get a bunch of writers to write about their favorite sports narrators or commentators.

I think that Roberto Clemente—often considered the greatest baseball player in Puerto Rican history—would make a great protagonist in a novel. I think that perhaps a novel could be constructed around these events, taking Roberto Clemente as the central protagonist around which to build the novel as a historical kaleidoscope. Which Olympic sport is most like your experience of writing. I like to think of writing in boxing terms. Just like the boxer must learn to measure the rhythm of his opponent, in order to skillfully dance around it, just to get back at him at the right instant, the writer must learn how best to move around the type of language that each novel prompts.

The writer must learn to expose himself to language and its dangers, just to get back at it with a stronger response. Each novel is a like a new fight, bringing with it new rhythms and new constraints. True writing is knowing how to react to new conditions and new stories. He currently teaches at the University of Cambridge and lives in London. On August 14th, , when night falls on the Olympic stadium, when the finalists of the meter dash enter the arena, we will witness the epilogue of an unusual battle between two of the greatest athletes of all time.

For a few seconds, the whole world will stop, fascinated, to watch the outcome of this decade-spanning battle. It is a duel fought at a distance, as only one protagonist will be on the track. What kind of battle is this? Who are the adversaries? Because these two are not just fighting for victory, one tenth of a second faster or slower, they are fighting, they have always fought, for the legend.

If Bolt wins, he will be the Olympic champion of the meter dash for the third consecutive time, a feat no one before him has ever accomplished. Three Olympics, three gold medals in the most glorious discipline. The perfect symbol of a champion. Which means that if Bolt wins, he will be guaranteed a definitive place in the pantheon of sports. They themselves have done it, constantly, over the past few years. And this is probably what makes the duel at a distance so delicious.

Because aside from pure talent and the will to endure, these two giants have nothing in common. Who will win on August 14th? The perfect man who watched his races and saw himself surrounded by cheaters, but never by equals? Or the smiling assassin from Jamaica, who openly displays his pleasure and is so good at sharing it with the crowd?

That is the magic of the meter dash. Everywhere in the world, the story of the crazy love between Edith Piaf and boxer Marcel Cerdan would have made a great novel! Where is this great French sports novel? Les Forcats de la route Slaves of the Road , a chronicle of the Tour de France written with panache by the great Albert Londres between the World Wars, was for a long time the model of sports literature in France. But of tragedy, of picaresque comedy, nothing. But maybe this is only the reflection of a more general state of mind. Who boos at the national team after the first defeat?

I experienced this throughout my childhood, when playing sports was considered a waste of time. Perhaps sports confront the damaging characteristic of the French, their individualism, their difficulty accepting common rules.

Why Are Olympic Sports Absent from Fiction? | ShelfTalker

Only then do we want to read them and find in their sports subject some quality. There is so much to understand in sports. The cohesion necessary in a collective, the benefit of encountering other cultures, the necessity of passing the ball beyond skin color. A whole journey and experience that French society has so much trouble with, and which, as time rolls on, they cruelly miss. The adventure novel of his globe-trotting existence.

Why Are Olympic Sports Absent from Fiction?

His capacity to adapt, across borders and cultures. A man able to live in a gorgeous villa, collecting cars at dizzying prices, but whose gaze, at 33, is still that of a kid when he enters the court, always just as excited to play. Listen to an interview with Parker after a game, the key to his incredible life path is his lucidity, his simplicity. The kid in Parker is never far off, nor are his family, his friends, his human qualities. Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of his career, I want to say one of the most moving, was the last European championship that took place in France.

But far from discrediting him, this moment only emphasizes his legendary mentality, his determination to help his teammates, to take on his responsibilities in the game. He pushed himself to the very end, clenched his teeth, was the embodiment of the sport.

Beyond defeats or victories. The image of total commitment. Of the most precious thing an athlete has. His integrity as a man and as a champion.

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Boxing, because a novel is a battle. Because words sometimes really hurt. Are the rounds not chapters of a story, told with its punches, its wounds, whose ending is uncertain? Boxing, because you can only shine after thousands of hours of training, in the shadows of an anonymous room. And also, maybe especially, because boxers are often tender, capable of embracing their adversaries, after having dented them, messed them up, brothers in arms more than enemies.

Finally, boxing, because as Clint Eastwood said in Million Dollar Baby , boxing is a matter of pride. This is what I feel profoundly about writing. In the face of approaching death, it is an imperial necessity to say what we want to say, to show the world some of our own footwork, of our style, before we leave. The vestiges of a battle against an opponent who dodges us and who we must push in order to confront, to surrender, ourselves.

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Alain Gillot is an admired journalist, a screenwriter, and a comic book author. The Penalty Area is his debut novel. Democratic Republic of the Congo: As winter sports go, figure skating and hockey are easier to find in books. What happened to my English skills? My second comment should have been this: My sister, three of my five cousins and I were all athletes when we were kids, and all of us read voraciously. Who is this Sue C.? Anyway, I do think she has a point, to some extent. Everytime I see a gym mat I get an itch to do a cartwheel which could cause me to really really hurt myself.

I see a bigger point here: Excellent stuff — real food for thought. I disagree with suec. My sister, me, and three cousins of my cousins were all athletes when we were kids and all of us read and still read voraciously. Alison, I completely agree with you — where ARE those books?

I would love to see comments from editors or publishers, to hear their side of things. That list above of Olympics books kind of missed the point. It would be great to know about them. And I can now admit that I, too, am shamefully hooked on the Olympics, and also staying up way too late. But I do have to ask: Bookish kids grow up to become writers. Sporty kids grow up to become management in large successful companies, or Olympic field hockey coaches. A glossary and index are included. A Photographic History of the Summer Olympics. Gr 3 Up—Updated since the edition, this chronological photographic essay presents the history of the Olympics from its earliest times to a preview of the Games.

Any young athlete who has dreamed of being part of the OIympics will find inspiration in both the photographs and writing. Hour of the Olympics.