The Summer Read - Dangerous Games

Why should you read it? 

If you are in interested in the Olympic Games and Australia’s participation in days gone by this is a must read.

The contrast between the lackadaisical approach to sending our competitors to the 1936 Olympic Games and what occurs in modern times is astonishing.

I find it unbelievable that there were virtually no coaches or support teams and that some competitors had to pay their own way.

The lack of communication beforehand causes huge problems as do the changes in playing surfaces and even the freshwater in the pools.

The events are juxtaposed with the propaganda elements of the "Nazi Games".

The knowledge we have of subsequent events in this area of the world contributes largely to our own impressions of these Games. The participants themselves, when interviewed later, describe a varying level of awareness of the Nazi impact on their experience.

 

What's it about?

A team of 33 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.

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.

'Larry Writer has delivered a gem in Dangerous Games.' Roland Perry

'Writer has faithfully recreated the 1936 Olympics - the most controversial in history.' Harry Gordon