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Written by John Goodbody - Audio book narrated by Barry Davies - Audio-Original Nonfiction - 5 COMPACT DISCS - 6 hours, 15 minutes

Publisher, Naxos Audiobooks (June 2008)

Listen to an MP3 audio clip.

The Beijing Olympic Games will be my eleventh as a television commentator. All but the first, the Mexico Games in 1968 when I was employed by Independent Television, have been with the BBC. In all except Moscow in 1980 my commentaries have been on site. Then, the governing bodies of the sports on which I was due to commentate responded positively to the demand of the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that Britain should follow the lead of the United States President Jimmy Carter and boycott the Games, because Soviet troops were occupying Afghanistan.

Happily, not everyone felt the need to employ sportsmen and women as some sort of front line, leaving Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and company to compete in Moscow, and me to work as the standby commentator in London, in case the far from reliable sound circuit of the time broke down. As a result, I was prepared for just about anything, with better immediate knowledge of what was happening than at any Games either before or since.

Many of the moments I most recall are included in this history of the Modern Games. Some I saw; most I viewed only after they had taken place – frustrating but inevitable with so much sport happening at the same time. In all I have commentated on over a third of the twenty-eight different sports, though only briefly on athletics, when I covered the start of the marathon in Mexico City live into ITN’s News at Ten. As a foreword to your listening I offer some thoughts on what the Olympic Games mean to me, and three memories of the days when ‘I was there.’

The Sognam Stadium in Seoul in 1988 housed my happiest memory – Great Britain’s victory over West Germany in the final of the hockey tournament. It was, as the team’s coach David Whitaker put it, ‘a moment encapsulated in my life which will never disappear’. Paul Barber, a staunch defender and a fearsome striker of penalty corners, spoke of the greater satisfaction of being successful as a part-time sportsman (a somewhat old fashioned thought even then), but the fact that victory was gained by the professional approach of a team of amateurs added to its endearing charm.

In the demands made on gymnasts in countries behind the iron curtain, two teenagers – Elena Shushunova of the Soviet Union and Daniela Silivas of Romania – were professional in all but name. In Seoul they produced arguably the most intense head to head competition of any sport in the Games; a drama of expressions off and expertise on the four pieces of apparatus, in a battle to win the All-Around title. The faces of agony and ecstasy as Shushunova, the last to perform, vaulted to victory by 0.025 of a mark have remained in my sporting portrait gallery.

The victory four years later, in the Games in Barcelona, of a lass from a small village in Western Java was rather more clear-cut. A Roman Catholic from the world’s biggest Muslim country, Susi Susanti became the first Indonesian to win an Olympic gold medal; and in a sport – badminton – that her country adores with a passion which has to be seen to be believed. Sitting in the commentary position alongside Craig Reedie, the chairman of the British Olympic Association and a member of the International Olympic Committee, who had striven to bring badminton to the Games, I saw clearly what the victory meant to her and to those in the audience from her country. Even the General who was the president of their badminton federation was awash with tears. When Susanti returned home with her then boyfriend, Budi Kusuma, who the next day won the men’s title, a million people turned out in Jakarta to greet them.

My visits to the main Olympic stadia, other than as a spectator, have been to commentate on the men’s football final and the ceremonies. The former usually offers up a name or two who will go on to make the headlines – Romario, who scored seven goals in ’88, and Carlos Tevez, the scorer of eight last time in Athens, being two examples. The ceremonies produce the biggest television audiences of the Games, and give the commentator the most homework. More often than not they are at least one act and one specially-written song too long, but they are an integral part of the Olympic family get-together as each host city presents its history, its culture and its children – their past, present and future – built around the parade of the athletes taking part. While those competing on the opening day rarely take part, the experience for those who do offers a lifetime memory; gilt-edged if given the honour of carrying their nation’s flag.

The entry of the Olympic flag, its interlocking rings on a plain, white background representing the five continents of the world joined in peace, excellence and sport is for me the most moving part of the protocol; its raising to the strains of the Olympic hymn, composed by Spiros Samaras, bringing a tingling feeling of inspiration. The electric atmosphere has caused many an oath-taker to succumb to nerves and forget his words. In Sydney the chosen judge failed to commit his colleagues to ‘complete impartiality’. Most people would probably choose the final lighting of the Olympic cauldron which, leaving to one side the desperate moments of waiting endured by Cathy Freeman in the Millenium Games, was for me far more dramatic when just a single runner carried the torch around the stadium.

In its darkest hour – the Munich tragedy in 1972 in which eleven Israeli athletes lost their lives at the hands of the Black September group of Palestinian origin – the Olympic ideal could be viewed as a source of hope in an uncomprehending world. In spite of all humanity’s imperfections, including those of its own members, I believe it remains so.

I trust you will enjoy John Goodbody’s History of the Olympics.

--Barry Davies

Behind the Scenes of A History of the Olympics By Nicolas Soames

The story behind this recording goes back to the 1984 Olympics and even further. A keen judoka myself, I had started going to the Budokwai, London’s premier judo club in 1982, shortly after Neil Adams won his world light middleweight title (Maastricht, 1981) with a spectacular armlock. I was practising one evening at the club, and I was approached by John Goodbody, a long-standing Budokwai member and a leading ‘Fleet Street’ sports journalist. He had heard I was a classical music journalist and asked if I was interested in turning my hand to judo writing as well – the sport was in need of reporters who understood this rather specialist combat form.

That was the start of a new career for me which ran parallel to music writing. For nearly 25 years I toured the world practising judo, and writing about it for a variety of newspapers, magazines as well as reporting for radio and TV.

I started writing for The Times and other UK newspapers, and in 1984 was invited by BBC TV to be the judo advisor at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The commentator I was to work with was Barry Davies, coincidentally, a friend of John’s.

So, it was fitting that, more than two decades later, when John proposed a history of the Olympics for Naxos AudioBooks, we should ask Barry to read it.

It became a bit of a special project for the three of us. John produced an extremely entertaining and informative script, and Barry’s reading was infused with the direct experience of many Olympics – they have both been to every event since Mexico.

The box set has been enhanced by Sebastian Coe’s interview. To have one of the greatest Olympians of all time, who just happens to be in charge of the London 2012 Olympics, is more than an added benefit. It was helped, perhaps, by the fact that, (though a little-known fact) Sebastian Coe had practised judo at the Budokwai, with William Hague, when the latter was shadow Prime Minister.

But that recording was not without its memories. Barry, our engineer Malcolm Blackmoor and myself turned up at Lord Coe’s offices on the 20th floor in a glass tower block by Canary Wharf having been assured that there was a quiet room in which we could record the interview. Lord Coe, understandably, was too busy to come into a studio.

The offices looked over the area of East London where part of the London Olympics will be staged – you could see the building work going on far below, and, just by the window, one of those massive cranes, standing idle.

We set up the recording with microphones in front of Lord Coe and Barry Davies (who was asking the questions), and, with silence all around, we started. We had forty-five minutes before Lord Coe had to leave for the Houses of Parliament to face some rigorous questioning about the rising costs of the London Olympics. That didn’t phase him – having won two Olympic gold medals in successive events and outrun the powerhouse that was Steve Ovett, he probably enjoys the challenge of facing MPs.

He began to tell his story and, on cue, the massive crane swung into action, its job on that day being to move clanking metal sheets from one area to another. The cranking and creaking was disastrous.

Malcolm looked up at me from his digital recording machine with a despairing look. I knew we wouldn’t have another chance and said to al blithely: ‘don’t worry... we can get rid of all the metallic interference later’.

Having had some experience of working with historical recordings and excising pops and clicks, I thought we could do something. But I did go rather pale when I returned to our offices and heard the crashing amount of metallic noise as Seb was telling his story.

Off I went with recording in hand to K&A, the Naxos editing suite in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, and told restoration engineer Andrew Lang that I had something that would test his mettle.

And, amazingly, with the help of Cedar software, he performed nothing short of a miracle.

So – I hope you enjoy A History of the Olympics, with its amazing stories of human endeavour, and all the upheavals that have taken place over the years; and I also hope you enjoy the story of one man, one rather special man, who has helped to create that history.

About the Author: John Goodbody will be covering the Beijing Olympics for The Sunday Times – his eleventh successive Summer Games. He was Sports News Correspondent for The Times for nearly twenty-two years, winning journalistic awards in every decade with the paper, most recently being voted Sports Reporter of The Year in 2001 and getting the prize in 2002 for The Sports Story of the Year. He covered his first Games in 1968, alongside Barry Davies, and has subsequently written several books on the event, including The Olympic Movement for The International Olympic Committee.

About the Narrator: Barry Davies began broadcasting with British Forces Broadcasting Services as a National Services officer in the Royal Army Service Corps. On leaving the army he worked for BBC radio (where he met his future wife, Penny) and then at The Times before being chosen by ITV for the 1966 World Cup held in, and won by, England. His first football commentary was Chelsea against A C Milan in February 1966. He covered his first Olympic Games with ITV in Mexico City in 1968 and joined BBC TV a year later. He has covered ten World Cups, ten Olympic Summer Games, seven Olympic Winter Games and seven Commonwealth Games. He has commentated on many sports and events over the last forty years: from football to Olympic opening ceremonies; hockey to rowing; figure skating and ice hockey to gymnastics; Wimbledon to the Boat Race; to the Lord Mayor’s Show and the last Royal Tournament. He lives happily in Datchet in Berkshire with Penny (formerly British Airways Crew). Their daughter Giselle is the Director of Communications at the International Olympic Committee and their son Mark is the Managing Director of Betfair. Barry was awarded the MBE in 2005.