SagAzon: How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros

How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros - an instant initiation to every sport

Game And Watch Collection

How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros - an instant initiation to every sport

game and watch collection - click on the image below for more information.

game and watch collection

The Olympics is the world's biggest sporting event - and it moves centre stage for London 2012. Yet the sports the world is familiar with - football, cricket, rugby, baseball, motor sports - are either missing or have a token presence. In their place are games that most of us have not a clue how to play or to watch. Which is where this witty, insightful book comes into play, offering the back story behind each Olympics sport and, by means of fiendishly clever diagrams and prose, explaining the rules and finer points. Once you've read David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton's accounts, you'll be on tenterhooks to see whether the Danish or the Koreans triumph at handball, just what the Italian fencers are up to, and if Greco-Roman wrestling really is like a game of chess.

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Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Fun reading, even if you aren't going to London..., June 7, 2012

Peter St Wecker (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Watch the Olympics: The Essential Guide to the Rules, Statistics, Heroes, and Zeroes of Every Sport (Paperback)

This book is an interesting combination of information, including:

- 2012 Summer Olympic Guide: Where will each event be held, what days, how many athletes, how many "golds up for grabs", and who are the main contenders?
- Sports History: Interesting tidbits of knowledge, such as a history of the Badminton shuttlecock around the world ("In ancient China Ti Jian Zi was the shuttlecock game, in which players used their feet to keep the sophisticated feathered shuttlecock aloft.")
- Technical details of each event: In the gymnastics vault, what is a "Twisting Yurshenko" exactly? See the answer, with diagram, on page 177.
- The Olympic history to each event: For example, Table Tennis didn't become an Olympic sport until 1988, partially due to opposition by the founder of the ITTF, Ivor Montagu...

Thanks to all the historical and technical information included, the knowledge here will not expire after the closing ceremony is complete. The book also includes a nice set of appendices, with such information as discontinued Olympic sports (Tug of War, anyone?), and a snapshot of each of the 26 previous Olympic games (The first Olympic flame was at the games in Amsterdam in 1928). A comprehensive index is also included.

As you might guess, this is not really a book to read cover-to-cover in one sitting. However, if you're getting ready to watch some Equestrianism (at Greenwich Park, 27 July to 9 August), for example, and want to brush up on both the basics and the finer points, reading that chapter would be an excellent place to start.

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