Westerly Sun Column | Get Ready for the Summer Olympics at the Library

The 2024 Summer Olympics officially begin this week! I vividly remember the first year I watched the Olympics as a child, and how I was glued to the screen, so inspired by the incredible athleticism of the competitors. It happened to be the Summer Olympics of 1996, when Kerri Strugg competed on the vault with an injured ankle, clinching the gold for the U.S. gymnastics team. I knew in that moment that I wanted to be a gymnast – the best gymnast – just like her. Unfortunately, I never progressed further than a few feeble attempts at front-handsprings, and opted for the librarian life instead, but I’m still absolutely in awe of these athletes. If you want to relive some of the more inspiring Olympic moments, before the Summer Olympics kick off later this week, head over to the library!

Everybody loves as underdog story, and there are a number of great books (and movies) about individuals and teams that beat the odds and triumph in the Olympic games. “Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” (2013) by Daniel James Brown has been quite popular since it was first published, but had another surge of check-outs last year when the movie of the same name, directed by George Clooney, came out. If you like that title, you’ll also like “Freedom to Win: A Cold War Story of the Courageous Hockey Team That Fought the Soviets for the Soul of Its People--And Olympic Gold” by Ethan Scheiner, or “The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man's Fight to Capture Olympic Gold” by Michael Loynd.

The amount of time, training, dedication, and grit it takes to become an Olympic-level athlete is not for the faint of heart, so it’s probably no surprise that many Olympians have lived pretty incredible lives. Memoirs give us a glimpse into the lives and experiences of some of these athletes, and there have been quite a few great ones published in recent years.  In “Just Add Water”, Katie Ledecky shares her journey to becoming possibly the best female swimmer in history, while diver Tom Daley explores the experiences in and out of the pool that made him the person he is in “Coming Up For Air”. “The Hard Parts” is a powerful memoir by Oksana Masters, who overcame incredible odds and countless obstacles to become one of the world’s top athletes. There are so many others, by basketball players, runners, gymnasts, and more, to inspire and entertain you.

Or perhaps you, as I once was, are motivated to begin training for the future Olympic games yourself! You can check out a guide like “Archery for Beginners”, “The Art of Surfing”, or even “The Complete Book of Pickleball” to get started! That last one is not yet an Olympic sport, but it may be in the future, so you’ll already be ahead of the game.

By Cassie Skobrak, Adult Services Librarian