Dangerous Games

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Annotation. This dramatic tale tells the true story of the twenty-nine Australian amateur sportsmen and three sportswomen who left Circular Quay on the SS Mongolia in May 1936 and paid their own way to represent their country at the 'Hitler Olympics'. Using diaries, personal papers, media reports and accounts from family members, along with striking photos from the athletes' own collections, Dangerous Games recreates the tension of heats and races; offers a rich picture of life in the Olympic village; and shows how athletes came to realise Hitler's political manipulation of the Games. It reveals the depths of the behind-the-scenes, cutthroat wheeling and dealing, and the heights of American black runner Jesse Owen's gold medal triumph. It also recognises the actions of our individual Australian team members, some of whom went on to become public figures or war heroes, who believed that sport was the antidote to tyranny.