Dr Martin Polley? Senior Lecturer in Sport at the University of 天发娱乐棋牌_天发娱乐APP-官网|下载 and one of the UK’s leading sport historians? will launch his latest book ‘The British Olympics: Britain’s Olympic Heritage 1612–2012’ at P &?G Wells bookshop in Winchester today (Thursday 29th Sept) at 5pm.
As London prepares to be the first city in the world to stage the modern Olympic games for the third time, Dr Polley reveals that the 2012 Games will also mark the 400th anniversary of the first ever Olympic Games to be staged on British soil.
In his illustrated book, which is part of the highly-acclaimed ‘Played in Britain’ series produced by English Heritage, Martin explores the key moments, people and places in this story, and sheds light on the lesser-known events that make up Britain’s unique contribution to Olympic history.
Did you know:
? The first published use of the word ‘Olympian’ in the English language dates from around 1590. Its author? William Shakespeare;
? That the first recorded Olympic Games in Britain actually took place in 1612, in a field outside Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire;
? It was an English traveller, Richard Chandler, who rediscovered the lost site of Olympia in Greece in 1766;
? The modern Olympic tradition of awarding medals goes back not to ancient Greece but to the Much Wenlock Olympian Games and the Liverpool Olympic Festivals of the mid-19th century, while the now accepted hierarchy of gold, silver and bronze was first introduced at the London Olympics in 1908;
? and the modern-day Paralympics originated in post-war Britain. They were the brainchild of a German refugee, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, working at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire during the 1940s.
Martin comments: “Writing this book has underlined to me how crucial Britain’s role has been in the development of the Olympic Games as an event, and in Olympism as an idea. So many of the characteristics of the modern Olympic Games, ranging from the hierarchy of medals to the range of sports involved, and from the organisational structures to the links between sport and a philosophical ideal, have their roots in Britain.
“My research has also stressed some of the failed ideas in Olympic history, like the short-lived National Olympian Games of the 1860s, or the alternatives to the official model, like the professional Morpeth Olympic Games that ran from the 1870s until 1958. Uncovering this rich and diverse history has been a joy.
“I’ve also got out of the archives and into the action, running in the cross-country races in the Wenlock Olympian Games and the Cotswold Olimpick Games. These races have given me a taste of how local stories underpin the global phenomenon that the Olympic Games have become.”
Martin will also be giving a talk about his book at the Guildford Book Festival at Surrey Sports Park, Team Room on Thursday 20 October at 6pm. Tickets are ?5 and are available from http://www.guildfordbookfestival.co.uk/?home or call 01483 444 334.