David Maraniss draws compelling portraits of the athletes competing in Rome, including some of the most honored in Olympic history; decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at eighteen seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he becam Muhammad Ali. There was a deeper meaning to those late-summer days at the dawn of the sixties. Rome saw the first doping scandal, the first commercially televised Summer Games, the first athlete paid for wearing a certain brand of shoes. Old-boy notions of Olympic amateurism were crumbling. In the heat of the cold war, the city teemed with spies and rumors of defection. Fourteen nations were in the process of being born and there was increasing pressure to provide equal rights for blacks and women as they emerged from generations of discrimination. Revealed here is the rich palate of character, competition, and meaning that gave Rome 1960 its singular essence. The dust jacket is translucent. Includes an appendix, notes, and index. ; 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall