FROM THE PUBLISHER

"They were the best Olympic Games ever. They provided us not just with magnificent spectacle and wondrous athletic endeavour, but with a period of sheer happiness and unity, possibly unmatched in the nation's history. For most Australians, those Sydney Games really did come to represent the time of our lives." "This book dissects all aspects of those Games...the inspiring deeds of champions like Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe, the stories behind so many heroic performances, the planning behind Sydney 2000, the political and personal dramas that occurred as the organising team went about its work. Harry Gordon has written from the inside about the disasters and scandals that afflicted Sydney's progress to the Olympics, about the friendships that were fractured along the way, and about the torch relay that seemed somehow to cause all the problems to evaporate. His is the absorbing, candid and ultimately inspirational story about the people who made it all happen on and off the arenas, and how they did it." The Time of Our Lives is a companion to Gordon's landmark history of 1994, Australia and the Olympic Games. While the emphasis is on Sydney 2000, it also traces Australia's involvement in the Games from the Atlanta Centennial Olympics of 1996 through the winter Games of 1998 and 2002. In doing so it takes the reader inside the minds of such champions as Kieren Perkins and Susan O'Neill as well as the unexpected winter gold-medallists of Salt Lake City, Alisa Camplin and Steven Bradbury. In so many cases, it is a tale of triumph over adversity.

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