Watching the Olympic athletes perform this week in London has been inspiring. There have been so many records broken this week that it makes we want to get the inside scoop on these Olympic athletes and what motivates them to push themselves so hard. Below is a list of biographies about current and past Olympic Athletes. Each Athlete has a story and a lesson to share with us.
Track and Field
Running for My Life: One Lost Boy’s Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games by Lopez Lomong & Mark Tabb is the true story of Lopez Lomong and how he went from being a Sudanese Civil War refugee to a 2012 U.S. Olympian.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand is the true story of Louis Zamperini, a 1936 Berlin Olympian for theU.S., who was taken into the custody of a Japanese POW Camp after his bomber was bombed down over thePacific Ocean.
Archery
Bikila: Ethiopia’s Barefoot Olympian by Tim Judah starts off with the story of Abebe Bikila and how we won the 1960 Summer Olympic Marathon inRome,Italy. After his return toEthiopia, Bikila faced many struggles, both economically and personally, that eventually lead to a car crash that left him paralyzed. But he battled back to medal in the very first Paraplegic Olympics in Archery.
Swimming
Michael Phelps: The World’s Greatest Champion by USA Today (to read list) is the story of Michael Phelps’ rise to become one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
In the Water They Can’t See You Cry: A Memoir by Amanda Beard & Rebecca Paley (to read list) With 7 medals among four Olympic Games, Amanda Beard was on top of her game and enjoying all the perks of her sex-symbol celebrity status. But what the world didn’t realize is that she was hiding a severe clinical depression that led her to abuse drugs, alcohol and herself. It all came to a head when her future husband walked in on her cutting herself.
Hopefully these stories of Olympians and their struggles and triumphs will be an encouragement to you to see how you can leave a mark on the world. I also hope you find them as entertaining as I did.
What Olympic Athlete would you want to read a biography about?
