The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles

The Ration Book Olympics by Clare Balding

Send as gift Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

The Ration Book Olympics

by Clare Balding

Length 56 minutes

Language English

Narrators Clare Balding & Various

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more

Send as gift Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

Summary
About the author
About the narrators

The 1948 Olympics were very different from the impressive spectacle that London put on in 2012. Three years after the end of the Second World War, Britain was still gripped by austerity. Rationing was still in force, severe bomb damage was still much in evidence and no new sports facilities could be built. Visiting athletes were put up in schools and RAF camps. Yet the Games were a resounding success and actually made a profit. Clare Balding meets athletes who competed in 1948, including cyclist Tommy Godwin, who won two bronze medals, and Dorothy Manley, who won silver in the athletics. She also talks to Roger Bannister who saved the day for the British team in the opening ceremony. The programme also includes fascinating voices from the archives, including Dutch sprinter Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won four gold medals.

Art Performance

CLARE BALDING is an award-winning writer and broadcaster who has been at the forefront of sports presentation since 1998. She has been a key anchor at seven Olympic and six Paralympic Games as well as multiple Commonwealth Games and Winter Olympics. She was awarded a special BAFTA in 2012 for her work at the London Olympics and Paralympics. In 2023, she took over as the lead BBC TV presenter at Wimbledon. She was a key commentator on the BBC's television coverage of King Charles III's Coronation in 2023 and for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee coverage in 2022. She has presented the television coverage of Crufts for nearly two decades and Lost Dogs Live on Channel 5, which helps reunite missing dogs with their owners. During most of her childhood she thought she was a dog and has tried to live with the mentality of a Labrador puppy: be pleased to see everyone and treat every new task as an exciting adventure. Her first book, My Animals and Other Family, was published in 2012 and won the National Book Award for biography of the year. In 2013, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and in 2023 received a CBE for services to sport and charity in the Queen's final Honours List.

Various