We seemed to have timed our finishing of "The Dirtiest Race in History," by Richard Moore fairly well.
The recent news and ongoing revelations of two of the sprint world's 'good guys', Messrs Gay and Powell, being involved in drug taking threatens to again test the respect of athletic fans.
Richard Moore's book covers an earlier scandal in the sport's history involving another pair of shy and slightly introverted sprinters, Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis and that race in Seoul:
The author painstakingly tracks down all the major players in the Seoul episode and pulls no punches with his questioning. And so we get treated to a well investigated piece which if compared to the athletic controversies of today shows little has changed.
In some parts the book reads like a thriller: strange behaviour, clandestine activities, shady characters, and the main players resolute that their truth is the truth.
In other parts it reads like a book about two prizefighting boxers and the goings on in their camps: Lewis and Johnson are portrayed as heavyweights whose egos are pitted against one another with disappointing yet intriguing results.
It's a must read for athletic fans if not just for an entertaining read then to gain an understanding of the peculiar pressures athletes face and the sometimes treacherous political and financial machinery they find themselves needing to navigate.
The book's received 4.5 out of 5 on Amazon and you can get a copy here.
