How Many Olympic Books?

by Scott McKenzie
Posted On August 18, 2008

I’ve been oddly fascinated with the Olympics recently. In past years, I kinda swore off the event because it just seemed like too many human interest stories and not enough sports. Certainly, it requires a tremendous amount of perserverance and hardwork to reach a lofty goal such as participating in the Olympics. But in previously, they just kept running these “Johnny was sent to bed one night without dessert when he was nine. But he fought back against the adversity, and now here he is in the skeet shooting finals!” pieces. This year, however, it seems like they’ve found a decent balance of sport and story.

So here’s the question of the day: How many books by/about our Olympic athletes will be written? The Michael Phelps achievement is a shoe-in, but who else? Maybe the gymnasts? Coach K on the story of redeeming (hopefully) USA Basketball? An inspirational tome with workout details from Dara Torres?

What do you think?

UPDATE: Looks like Torres already has that book deal. Here’s some info from Publishers Marketplace back at the end of July:

“Poised to become the first American swimmer to compete in five Olympic Games as well as the oldest female Olympic swimmer ever Dara Torres’ inspirational memoir, offering insight into her competitive spirit, work ethic, and determination to succeed in the face of life’s challenges, including motherhood and Bulimia, and her motivation to attempt a comeback after the first of her first child in 2006, for publication in spring 2009, written with NYT Magazine contributing writer Liz Weil, and a fitness guide, presenting the secrets of her legendary training regimen and her reflections on what has motivated her, for publication in early 2011, to Stacy Creamer for Broadway, by manager Evan Morgenstein at Premier Management Group (world). “