Yannick Dehée, CEO
"The first major overview of sports and sporting events as sites of Cold War rivalry: dirty tricks, propaganda, defection, doping, espionage, and more."

This book surveys the lives of athletes often helplessly caught up in the rivalries of the Cold War: Emil Zátopek, Wilma Rudolph, Tamara Press, Abebe Bikila, Bobby Fischer, Nadia Comaneci, Mohamed Ali, and even Martina Navratilova. It recounts the major sporting events of those five decades: the Olympic Games, but also international encounters and tournaments (soccer, track and field, basketball, and many other sports). This is a story of performance and competition, clashes that read as psychological warfare to mass audiences or underground onlookers. A surprising account, the first of its kind, about a conflict with lasting repercussions on societies worldwide.