Steve Ovett OVETT An Autobiography First Edition Signed
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Steve Ovett OVETT An Autobiography First Edition Signed
First edition, first print hardback of OVETT: An Autobiography, by Steve Ovett and John Rodda and published by Willow Books/William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., London in 1984. Signed and inscribed to a previous owner by Steve Ovett on the title page.The book is in very good condition (Clean black cloth boards with gilt lettering on the spine), with only minor wear to the pictorial dust jacket which is not price clipped (light creasing to the edges). Internally, the pages are clean and tight and there are no tears and no other inscriptions.
Stephen Michael James "Steve" Ovett OBE (born 9 October 1955), along with his great rival, Sebastian Coe, dominated middle-distance running in the early 1980s.
The winner of gold and bronze medals at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Ovett set six world records. A character of wonderful fight and natural ability to go alongside his glorious trademark of waving to the crowd halfway down the home straight, such was his confidence and control of taking charge of a race.
Ovett was a one-off. He became a commentator on athletics for ITV and later the IAAF. Ovett was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in 1982 and an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000.
"Steve Ovett, Olympic gold medal winner and world record breaker, always believed that he would achieve those peaks. He understood from a very early age that he was blessed with exceptional talent for running fast.
From his early teens the course to the Olympic arena was carefully planned and virtually from the time he took a gold medal in the European Junior championships of 1973 he remained at the top.
Few international sportsmen, in an individual event so demanding as athletics, have managed to stay in that position for so long; few have come back from the sort of fearful injury he suffered in 1981 to a world record breaking run in 1983 and on to the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984.
In all that time he has been very much a mysterious person. Privacy and a normal lifestyle is something he has desired almost as much as winning and for years he kept the media at arms length.
Few journalists managed to penetrate the defence, thus the story which Ovett now tells is revealed for the first time: leaving home at an early age to live with his grandparents; the dedication and support his mother and father provided in shaping him into a world beater; the bitter row they had at the Moscow Olympic Games which finally brought a family split; his life with his wife Rachel.
He shows the selfishness winners must possess, but also a warmth and affection which sets him apart from many British sportsmen.
As well as giving an insight into many of his achievements on the track, he gives a new version of the Coe-Ovett saga created by the press. He takes a strikingly new attitude on drugs which aims to end the muddled hypocrisy surrounding the subject. He seeks a better deal for those who will follow him in the sport, and his perception about the administration of athletics will win him new friends - and opponents
Running through the record book and winning in the championship arena has been a lot of fun, and this book bubbles with it. Before his twenty-ninth birthday, Steve Ovett packed in several lives and Los Angeles, his third Olympic Games, provides the finale to his long-awaited autobiography.
John Rodda, with whom Steve Ovett has collaborated on his autobiography, was Athletics Correspondent of The Guardian. He has covered every Olympic Games since 1960 and is co-editor, with Lord Killanin, of The Olympic Games 1984."
216 pages. Illustrated with black & white photographs.
ISBN: 0 00 218119 3
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Steve Ovett OVETT An Autobiography First Edition Signed