I’ve been lionized by the public and the press. The world is at my feet. I’ve spread my wings and here I am, soaring above everything and everyone. But in reality, the descent has already begun.” At age 20, Thomas Dekker was already earning €100,000 a year—as an amateur bike racer. The next year, he turned pro and his salary quadrupled then rose again to €900,000 as he established his position as a super-domestique among Europe’s wealthiest superteams. The sport marveled at Dekker’s rise as the young racer set his ambitions on capturing cycling’s biggest prizes for himself. Before long, though, Dekker found himself corrupted by money, dazzled by fame, and cracking under the relentless pressure to perform at a superhuman level. In his tell-all book DESCENT: My Epic Fall from Cycling Superstardom to Doping Dead End, Dekker reveals a sordid way of life full of blood bags, drugs, prostitutes, and money. DESCENT tells the story of a yearslong bender that exposes the brutal truth of his life as a professional cyclist. And Dekker is not alone; he names those who fell with him and those who aided in his downfall. In DESCENT, we take an unflinching look at the European peloton as it roars through its modern boom years—the height of the EPO era—and what we see is shocking. You won’t be able to turn away from this page-turning read about one man’s rise, fall, and redemption and what his story reveals about professional sports.

    But ‘Mr Indestructible’ – who had become the first Australian to win the Rock of Roubaix earlier that year – got back on his bike.By 2013 Stuart O’Grady had competed in 17 Tours; secured Olympic and Commonwealth Games medals; been named Australian Cyclist of the Year, and Australian Male Road Cyclist of the Year; won the inaugural Tour Down Under; and earned an Order of Australia Medal in recognition of his contribution to the sport. But then came the worst time of his life, when he announced his retirement after such an impressive cycling career and revealed that he had used the performance enhancing drug EPO before the 1998 Tour de France – a Tour marred by widespread doping.In this up-front and honest autobiography Stuey reveals all. This is his story: as candid and down-to-earth as the man himself.

     This book does not do that. For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story. In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby. This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don't exist. You earn but you don't drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals. Only the minority taste the top, only one person gets to lift the cup or win the medal, only 15 get to play for England at any one time. For the rest, that’s not the case. Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different - help an amateur team turn professional. This is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport - where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name. It's about how it feels to live year to year, with teammates constantly on the move. It's about how professionalism irreversibly changes the French club Stade Rouennais as they move up the divisions, about the tension between progress and identity in a rugby team. It's also about how it feels to actually be out there on the field, how it feels to occasionally do something extraordinary and how it feels when this is no longer enough for you to make the sacrifices that you need to make to keep playing. There's no ghostwriting, it's an unmitigated meditation on how it feels and what it means to play rugby for a living, to dedicate yourself to an uncompromising but occasionally beautiful game. If you've wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.

    The contrast could not have been greater - as Lance Armstrong, a fraudster backed by many corporate sponsors and feted by presidents, was about to deliver a stage-managed confession to Oprah, so a young woman from a small village in Wales took aim.      She too had been a cyclist, the only rider ever to have become World and Olympic champion in the same year, and the first British cyclist to have been ranked World No.1, but as a woman in a man's sport, her exploits gained little recognition and brought no riches. She too had ridden through this dark period for the sport when drug-taking was everywhere. Nicole Cooke spoke up for those who had taken a very different path to Lance and his team-mates.      In her frank and outspoken autobiography, Cooke reveals the real story behind British cycling's rise to global dominance. With a child's dreams of success, she left home at 18 to pursue her goals in Italy. Broken contracts, unpaid wages, a horrendous injury and drugs cheats were just some of the challenges she faced, even before she lined up to take on her opponents. The Breakaway is a book that will not only inspire all those who read it, but which also asks some serious questions about the way society regards women's sport.

    The people who know him, know that Ole is never hesitant to speak his mind — and this book is no exception. Combining facts and opinion, Ole's biography is a straightforward look at the many phases of his career in the wild, if somewhat seedy, world of professional wrestling. From his days in amateur wrestling, to the time when he hooked up with Gene and Lars Anderson as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Ole relates 30-plus years of never-before-told stories. Ole tells of his feuds, both inside the ring and out, with people like Ric Flair, Wahoo McDaniel, Mr. Wrestling, Dusty Rhodes, and Bill Watts. However, his biggest feuds took places behind the scenes in the halls and offices of corporate giant, Superstation WTBS. The matches in the ring were nothing compared to his battles with The Suits, corporate executives like Vince McMahon, Jim Barnett, Bill Shaw, Jim Herd, and Eric Bischoff. In Ole's own words, "The wrestling matches may have been staged and scripted, but there was nothing `fake' about the corporate and legal battles." As a former wrestler, booker, promoter, owner, and executive producer, Ole goes deeper in the inner workings of professional wrestling than anyone ever has. He tells the stories about financial, legal, and drug problems that plagued the wrestling business. It doesn't matter whether you hate wrestling or love it. This is a powerful story about a man who stood up to the establishment. His insight, humor, and colorful use of the English language makes this a "no-holds barred" book that you won't be able to put down.

    Remembered for his celebrity lifestyle and playboy antics as much as for his on-court tantrums and disqualifications, this is his colourful life story.

    With the insight that helped him bring the best out of personalities as different as Freddie Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen and Steve Harmison, the winner of a record 26 Tests as England captain shares his views on the state of cricket today and gives a frank assessment of fellow players, coaches and administrators. He concludes with praise for the achievements of the 2009 Ashes-winning England team. Entertaining, forthright and surprisingly candid, Time to Declare is essential reading for all cricket lovers -- the definitive account of the career of one of the modern game's most influential characters.

    It's the only cycling record that matters: one man and his bike against the clock in a quest for pure speed. No teammates, no rivals, no tactics, no gears, no brakes. Just one simple question - in sixty minutes, how far can you go?Michael Hutchinson had a plan. He was going to add his name to the list of record-holders, cycling's supermen. But how does a man who became a professional athlete by accident achieve sporting immortality? It didn't sound too hard. All he needed was a couple of hand-tooled bike frames, the most expensive wheels money could buy, a support team of crack professionals, a small pot of glue, and a credit card wired to someone else's bank account. Still, getting the glue wasn't a problem...Michael Hutchinson became a full-time cyclist in 2000 after becoming disillusioned with an academic career. Over the following six years he has won more than twenty national titles, and the gold medal in the Masters' Pursuit World Championships. He is now a writer and journalist (and cyclist) and lives in south London.

    He seemed pointed toward stardom, but would it be in basketball, his true favorite, or maybe in track, where he qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials as a hurdler? As for playing football, the only sport that really mattered in Griffin’s small Texas town, first he had to overcome his mother’s objections to the violence and danger—which he did by making a “Pinkie Promise” with her that no one would catch him. Eventually, he began to realize that all of his remarkable talents—unrivaled speed, pinpoint accuracy, exceptional intelligence, single-minded drive—combined into a potent force that few quarterbacks could rival. What followed seemed almost destined: a football scholarship to Baylor University, three exceptional seasons capped by winning the Heisman Trophy, and the 2012 draft—where Griffin, as the second overall pick, became the franchise quarterback for one of the oldest and most storied football teams in the country.In RG3: The Promise, Washington Post reporter Dave Sheinin provides an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at Griffin’s first year in the NFL, from his record-breaking first game to the frightening knee injury that ended the Redskins’ playoff hopes. An award-winning journalist himself, Sheinin has reported on Griffin’s rookie season every step of the way, and now has written a unique, intimate look inside the transformation of one of the NFL’s brightest young stars.

         Ronan O'Gara has been at the heart of Munster and Irish rugby for the past fifteen years. Now, as he comes to the end of a glittering playing career, it is time for him to reflect on those many successes and occasional failures with the straight-talking attitude that has become his trademark. Never one to shy away from the truth, the result is Ronan O'Gara: Unguarded.     Packed full of anecdotes and analysis of the teammates O'Gara has been proud to share the shirt with, and of the coaches he has played under -- often in controversial circumstances -- this is the definitive record of an era when Munster rose to triumph in Europe, and Ireland to win the Grand Slam, before crashing down to earth again. It is simply the must-have rugby book of the year.

    Part biography, part catharsis, the story of how a tearaway kid became heavyweight champion of the world, and one of Britain’s best-loved sports stars; his descent into mental illness and his slow and painful journey back to health.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    Packing his collection of football programmes (1,134 of them -- football fans are sticklers for statistics), Dave is aghast to be informed that the programmes do not fall into that category. He must whittle down his treasured archive to only what will fit inside a Tupperware container the size of a Dan Brown hardback. 32 Programmes tells the story of how Dave made the selection of his most important programmes, and how the process brought back a flood of nostalgia for simpler times. As the sights, sounds and smells of those 1,134 football matches return, the choices Dave makes reflect the twists and turns that life takes. Finally, with just hours to go before the flight, the container is full to the brim. One more programme will be added to the collection - one that Dave never thought he would see and which means more to him than any other. 32 Programmes is the story of youthful football obsession, crushes on disinterested girls, rubbish jobs and trying to impress skinheads. But most of all, it is the story of a man's life and loves, of family, friends and football.

    It includes the story of Frank's beloved sister, Eva, who was a top-class West End shoplifter, and his sons David and Patrick, who reveal in shocking detail the full extent of the family's network and the influences that shaped them.With sawn-off shotguns as toys, the Kray twins as family friends and a mother who urged them as teenagers to 'get out of bed and rob a bleedin' bank', it is little wonder that the Fraser boys were heavily involved in organized crime by the time they were in their twenties. Packed with new information, and featuring some of the most famous names in the London underworld, this is a fascinating slice of gangland history seen through the eyes of Frank Fraser and his two renegade sons.

    As a player, Kammy trawled football's outposts with the likes of Bradford City, Stoke City and Portsmouth where he suffered the slings, arrows and hurled bananas of racial abuse. Later, during the autumn of his career, he played in Howard Wilkinson's swashbuckling Leeds team where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Eric Cantona and Lee Chapman.On hanging up his boots, he moved into the dugouts at Bradford and Sunderland as manager before joining the Sky football revolution as roving reporter on Soccer Saturday and Goal On Sunday's eagle-eyed analyst, amassing a raft of catchphrases along the way.Mr Unbelievable is a hugely entertaining, moving, shocking and laugh out loud funny story of a genuine cult hero.

    Dan survived a plane crash from which sixteen of the twenty-two people on board were killed. He was left critically injured and woke up from a six-week-long coma with a broken neck, broken skull, severe head trauma, a collapsed lung, and other serious internal injuries. Against all odds, Dan recovered and went on to become one of the greatest competitive skydiver in the world. With the love and support of friends and family, Dan was able not only to resurrect his life but return to skydiving to achieve greater heights than he could have ever imagined. His techniques and methods for excelling are applicable to all people, no matter their goals. Dan uses his experiences to teach the lessons he's learned--as a competitor, coach, business owner, father, and husband--to help others achieve their dreams, overcome obstacles, and reach their peak performance.