Stars: 3
Review by: Mandy Apgar
Yes, I will be
the as of now lone dissenter from a 5 on this. The concept is this - a
crew of 9 working class poor guys from Washington manage to win at the
Berlin Olympics. They're actually known as
the "Miracle 9" in sports if one has never heard of them, which I had
only a vague recollection of before. The author got his information
directly from the diaries and personal interviews with the 9 men
involved and their families - the one passed only 10 months
after they spoke - so one can trust things are fairly accurate. He does
wax into melodrama a bit too much for me and spent too much time talking
about the boat itself. Which, granted that was what the late
interviewee (Joseph Rantz, who had one real wicked
stepmother straight out of Grimm's and is the main focus of this -
really, it ought to be his biography) asked but for those like myself
who did not really know much about that kind of boat things got very
dull. But the melodrama did get pretty bad at times,
very over dramatic for me - especially when the team was racing. Still
would recommend it though as he does a good job of showing how Hitler
covered up his regime to allow for the Olympic committee to come
forward, more or less putting a blanket over what he
was doing over there to make things look better. But in terms of sports
related books I've read better.
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