He talks about what it means to have the games televised for the first time, for the first sponsored athletes (who up until then were purely "amateurs"), and for the United States to have a Black man, Rafer Johnson, carry the flag at the opening ceremonies to present a different front to the world than the reality that saw so much civil unrest back home. Muhammad Ali-but he also puts the games into context in terms of political and historical significance. While focusing on the eighteen days that constituted the Summer Olympics that year, Maraniss offers not only biographies of several significant athletes-decathlete Rafer Johnson, marathoner Abebe Bikila, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and the boxer Cassius Clay a.k.a. He really masterfully captures the significance of exactly how many things drastically changed that year. Everything You Never Knew You Wanted to Know About The 1960 Olympicsĭavid Maraniss has somehow found to a way to encapsulate all of the political, emotional, and historical events that occurred around the 1960 Olympics in Rome…and all without making us roll our eyes or doze off.
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