Sportsbiografier

UNDER A CROATIAN SUN takes the reader on a journey from the grey concrete of London to a ramshackle village in Croatia. This warming account of following your heart shows how, with a bit of courage and an open mind, home is wherever you make it.

How will people remember you at the end of your life? Right now, the pen is in your hand, and you're writing the story your loved ones will one day tell about you. Your narrative will either be defined by fear or faith, caution or courage, apathy or adventure. In Go Live Your Adventure, Konan Stephens shares behind-the-scenes details from conquering some of the planet's most exhilarating adventures. Journey with him as he bikes across the country, climbs one of the world's tallest mountains, and much more! Along the way, he shares how these experiences shaped his life and how they can shape yours, as well. You can write the story you've always wanted. Go live your adventure!

"Between the years 2012 and 2019, Sir Steve Hansen oversaw an era of such remarkable success that it would be almost impossible to repeat. His 15-year career in the All Blacks coaching team is the heaviest footprint in rugby history. Of the 210 tests he was involved with, his team lost just 25 times. Of the 107 tests he served as head coach, Sir Steve accumulated a record 4 World Rugby Coach of the Year awards and orchestrated 93 victories - a winning percentage of 87 per cent, the highest of any All Blacks coach"--Publisher information.

Christy Martin spent most of her life hiding. For someone who for two decades was the most famous female fighter in the world, that wasn't easy. This book is the extraordinary tale of a female athlete's rise to become the fighter who legitimized women in combat sports and the personal turmoil she hid from the world.

For the first thirty-five years of my life, I thought I was unstoppable, believing that my hard work, focus and passion could carry me through anything. I had an amazing, flexible job, a loving husband, a powerful, strong body and lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I believed I made good choices and had control over my future. I didn't.Going from professional level ultra-distance mountain bike racer to mother addicted to pain pills was a long and arduous road. And not just painful in the physical sense, but in a deeply emotional and spiritually soul crushing way. I spent ten years in a downward spiral I couldn't control. I was labeled a drug seeker and a phony. I dragged my family through years of turmoil and despair. But I am a fighter. And I didn't succumb to those who thought the pain was "all in my head". I clawed my way through the healing process and fought every day to put my life back together. I didn't just do this through more surgeries and drugs, I also had to go through a deeply powerful Shamanic experience to heal fully. We humans are more than our bodies and healing is not just about identifying physical problems and fixing them. It is about tapping into our emotional wounds, the ones that lay deep beneath the surface. Those lacerations are the hardest to find and the most challenging to heal.What started as one little surgery snowballed into the decade that almost destroyed my life. Each time I had one of my surgeries, diagnostic injections, CT scans or doctors' appointments, I had hope. Hope that this was the last one, the last knife, the last needle, the last pain pill. Hope that I could get my life back. Hope that the pain would finally be gone. And each time that hope was crushed. But instead of letting the grief of lost hope consume me, I had to find ways to continue to show up for myself and my family. I found love, gratitude, grit and a perseverance I had no idea I possessed. If you want to read a book about Vicodin and OxyContin to understand how these drugs ruin lives, this is not the book for you. I offer a much different take on opioids. They did not destroy my life, they saved it. Our society loves tragedy and drama. And don't get me wrong, my journey has both of those elements, but it is also a story of hope and perseverance. There are many people who have an experience like mine but you never hear about them because they are not commercial. I didn't end up in the back alleys of the big city shooting up. Instead I fought through the withdrawal process twice, unsupported and alone while continuing to work and care for my family.But as I sit here today, I can tell you, the journey, the pain, the fear and subsequently the growth that took place were all worth it. When I reflect on those years, I know it was meant to be. Because I share my life lessons each and every day. And not just with people in pain, with everyone. The six lessons I share in this book are not exclusive to those who are suffering. You don't have to experience the misery I did to appreciate the growth and take a nugget of it with you into your life. The human experience is defined by highs and lows. And we all have them. It's what we do with them that matters.Even though I now know I am stoppable, my spirit remains unbreakable.

During his 15-season Major League career, slugger Johnny Mize was among the preeminent power hitters in baseball, a star for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants, and New York Yankees. This first full-length biography traces the arc of Mize's career through his prime years in the limelight to his retirement.

Finnish figure skater Kiira Korpi's career included triumphal championships and bitter disappointments. With interviews and quotes from family, friends, coaches and competitors, Korpi's candid memoir describes the making and eventual undoing of a champion, and reveals a darker side to the 'ice princess' image of women's figure skating.

Now translated to English and extensively annotated, The Kings of Strength records and preserves the biographies of more than 200 strength performers and bodybuilders from ancient times up to the early 1900s.

Author Benjamin Lorr wandered into a yoga studio-and fell down a rabbit holeHell-Bent explores a fascinating, often surreal world at the extremes of American yoga. Benjamin Lorr walked into his first yoga studio on a whim, overweight and curious, and quickly found the yoga reinventing his life. He was studying Bikram Yoga (or "e;hot yoga"e;) when a run-in with a master and competitive yoga champion led him into an obsessive subculture-a group of yogis for whom eight hours of practice a day in 110- degree heat was just the beginning.So begins a journey. Populated by athletic prodigies, wide-eyed celebrities, legitimate medical miracles, and predatory hucksters, it's a nation-spanning trip-from the jam-packed studios of New York to the athletic performance labs of the University of Oregon to the stage at the National Yoga Asana Championship, where Lorr competes for glory. The culmination of two years of research, and featuring hundreds of interviews with yogis, scientists, doctors, and scholars, Hell-Bent is a wild exploration. A look at the science behind a controversial practice, a story of greed, narcissism, and corruption, and a mind-bending tale of personal transformation, it is a book that will not only challenge your conception of yoga, but will change the way you view the fragile, inspirational limits of the human body itself.

This book is dedicated to the life, the artificial flies, the pioneering techniques in stillwater nymph fishing and ultimately the angling legacy of Dr Howard Alexander Bell (1888-1974) of Wrington, Somerset. Dr Bell regularly fished Blagdon Lake in the years following WW1 where he sought to devise better methods of catching reservoir trout. As a result of his enquiring and scientific mind Dr Bell did not follow the standard practice of the day of employing 'attractor' patterns but rather he studied the creatures that the fish were targeting and endeavoured to design artificial patterns which replicated them, and retrieved them in a manner which mimicked their progression through the water. He was probably the first angler to implement such an imitative approach to reservoirs and his Blagdon Buzzer is the forerunner of the multitude of buzzer artificials employed today. Includes 95 black & white illustrations and 5 maps

The author is a dedicated follower of Castleford Tigers in the sport of rugby league and has previously published 24 books featuring this club and sport in general. His full portfolio adds five animal stories, both fictional and real, covering their adventures plus another five books detailing interesting memoirs and thoughts and how he has overcome the odds. This book, released in spring 2021, adds further to his accounts of Castleford by updating and presenting additional material relating to the club's experience in the prestigious Challenge Cup Competition.

During his 16-year career, Harold ""Pee Wee"" Reese contributed timely hits, countless acrobatic defensive plays, stole hundreds of bases and made the National League All-Star team for 10 consecutive years. This first full-length biography chronicles the life of the man described as ""perhaps the most beloved Dodger in the history of the club."

A beautifully illustrated journey through the history and evolution of cricket, from one of our greatest sports writers. 'Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best' Cricketer