Cheat: The Not-So-Subtle Art of Conning Your Way to Sporting Glory by Titus O'Reily

$34.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

Where there's sport, there's cheating. No sport is immune; athletics, swimming, rugby, American Football, cricket, baseball, badminton, motorsports, tennis and curling. Yes, even that sport on the ice with brooms. Almost as soon as humans started playing sport competitively, they started to cheat. They cheated to win, for the fame, for the money and sometimes for reasons that are hard to understand. From the fiendishly clever to the outright hare brained, the borderline to the blatant, Titus O'Reily takes us through the many and varied ways athletes and countries have tried to cheat over the years. There's the winner of the New York marathon who was driven in a car part of the way, the male basketballer whose drug test revealed he was pregnant, the Tour De France where many of the riders took the train, the Spanish Paralympic basketball team who faked being intellectually disabled to win gold at the 2000 Paralympics. As well as sharing an alarming amount of tales involving swapping bodily fluids, Titus takes you through doping, illegal equipment, bribes, playing dirty, faking injuries, wearing disguises, dodgy referees, ball tampering, eye gouging, itching powder, licking an opponent to distract them and sending a dwarf out to bat to shrink the strike zone. Just as sport has become more sophisticated, so has cheating in sport, from state backed doping programs to tiny motors in Tour De France bikes. What does this say about us, that we cheat with such regularity and creativity? Will technology help stop cheating or will it only make it worse? Mastering the not-so-subtle art of cheating is a hilarious trip through the history of cheating in sport, and a handy how-to-guide for the professional athlete in your family.       ...Show more

Eleven Bats: A Story of Combat, Cricket and the SAS by Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt

$34.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt spent more than twenty years in the SAS. His decades of service and his multiple tours in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan made him one of the regiment's most experienced and recognised figures.   Alongside the SAS, Harry's other lifetime love is cricket. An improvised game of cr icket was often the circuit-breaker Harry and his team needed after the tension of operations. He began a tradition of organising matches wherever he was sent, whether it was in the mountains of East Timor with a fugitive rebel leader, or on the dusty streets of Baghdad, or in exposed Forward Operating Bases in the hills of Afghanistan. Soldiers, locals and even visiting politicians played in these spontaneous yet often bridge-building games. As part of the tradition, Harry also started to take a cricket bat with him on operational tours, eleven of them in total. They'd often go outside the wire with him and end up signed by those he met or fought alongside. These eleven bats form the basis for Harry's extraordinary memoir. It's a book about combat, and what it takes to serve in one of the world's most elite formations. It's a book about the toll that war takes on soldiers and their loved ones. And it's a book about the healing power of cricket, and how a game can break down borders in even the most desperate of circumstances.     ...Show more

AFL 2020: A Season Like No Other by Ashley Browne

$32.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

2020: A Season Like No Other explores how the AFL navigated a season that changed day-by-day for fans, for the clubs, and for the players and coaches. The 2020 AFL Season was like no other in the game's 162-year history. As coronavirus struck down Australia during round one, in March 2020, the AFL was f orced to take unprecedented steps to keep its season alive. The season was postponed at the end of round one, a round without crowds, and resumed on 11 June, a hiatus of 84 days. During that period speculation was rife as to whether the season could proceed, and where. 'Hubs' became the key word, and the fixture was rebuilt to allow for 17 matches -- with clubs playing each other once. By July, as COVID-19 ravaged the country and economy, teams were quarantined, under strict protocols, in NSW and QLD. By the end of July, the WA teams and SA teams were back in their home states, playing before reduced crowds, but all VIC teams had relocated to NSW, QLD, and WA. In one 14-day period, Collingwood was fixtured to play four games. This is the story of how the AFL, the clubs, the players, the coaches, the administration, and the fans coped with history in the making.   ...Show more

A World of Supercars by 1

$28.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

The Life Harley-Davidson by Darwin Holmstrom

$42.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness | Series: The Life

From the moment we first saw riders experiencing the joy and the freedom that can only be found riding a powerful motorcycle down an open road, many of us have been hooked on the life Harley-Davidson. The Life: Harley-Davidson celebrates that freedom. The Life Harley-Davidson covers all aspects of the H arley lifestyle, profiling celebrity Harley fans like Elvis Presley, Hunter S. Thompson, Peter Fonda, and Arnold Schwartzenegger. All the iconic machines are here, too, like the Sporster, Electra Glide, and Fat Boy. The book also explores all the major types of custom Harleys, like Bobbers, Choppers, and Cafe racers. This is about more than just motorcycles, though. It's about community, gear, and tattoos. It's about B movies, like The Wild One, The Wild Angels, and Wild Hogs. And, of course, television's and Sons of Anarchy, a program that ignited interest in the life Harley-Davidson among a younger generation of rebels. Chapters cover the one percenter outlaw club scene, focusing on international clubs like the Hells Angels, Outlaws, Pagans, and Dragons. ...Show more

Life of Brine: A Surfer's Journey by Phil Jarratt

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography and Memoir

"In the not-so-small world of surfing, Phil Jarratt has seen it all. Luckily for us, he's a fearless, funny storyteller, with a reporter's unsentimental eye and an endearing modesty. But his memoir is, above all, a haunting self-portrait: the boy practising drop-knee cutbacks in his mother's full-length mirror in mid-century Wollongong becomes a man." William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days Life of Brine is the memoir of Phil Jarratt, one of the world's best-known chroniclers of surfing culture whose lifelong pursuit of the perfect wave has placed him in the midst of some of the most exciting moments in surfing's modern history.   Jarratt, who has courted controversy in his long career as a journalist, editor and documentarian, pulls no punches as he rides an exhilarating wave of nostalgia from the sixties up until now, through the heady days of drugs, alcohol and excess in Bali and Biarritz and other exotic locations in between. Filled with debauchery, reflection and insight, this is a book that will be devoured by surfers young and old. ...Show more

Speed Kings: Australians' Quest to Win the World's Greatest Motor Race by John Smailes

$32.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

The fascinating, definitive story of Australia and New Zealand's quest to win the world's greatest motor race. Winning the Indianapolis 500, the greatest spectacle in motorsport, has been a quest for Australians and New Zealanders since the first race in 1911. Seventeen have tried and two have succeede d: Scott Dixon in 2008 and Will Power in 2018. Rupert Jeffkins, Australia's original speed king, entered the first Indy 500 and on his second attempt in 1912 came within five kilometres of victory. He and Italian Ralph De Palma created legend when they pushed their car to the finish line after it blew up while leading. Speed Kings tells Jeffkins' full story for the first time.The lure of the Brickyard, paved with 3.2 million bricks, has drawn champions from both sides of the Tasman. Sir Jack Brabham, his son Geoffrey and grandson Matthew have each tried to win. So have the 'big three' of New Zealand motor racing: Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon. Now Scott McLaughlin looks set to become the next driver from down under to chase American motor racing's greatest prize.Indy doesn't offer up victory lightly. Blinding speed - nudging 380 km/h and averaging 280 km/h over 500 miles - makes the Brickyard one of the most precarious racetracks in the world. Forty-two drivers have died attempting the 500. Speed Kings tells the story of the Australian and New Zealand drivers, team owners, engineers, even commentators who've made the Brickyard their quest.   ...Show more

The State of Origin Companion by Alan J. Whiticker

$39.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

Marking the 40th anniversary of the first State of Origin in 1980, 'The State of Origin Companion' tells the full story of interstate rugby league since the birth of the game in Australia in 1908. Not only are all interstate matches played before 1980 featured, but international matches against New Sout h Wales and Queensland are detailed for the first time. Together with complete representative records for all state players, 'The State of Origin Companion' completes the interstate story. ...Show more

Taekwondo Basics - Everything You Need to Get Started in Taekwondo - from Basic Kicks to Training and Competition by Scott Shaw

$14.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness | Series: Tuttle Martial Arts Basics Ser.

Taekwondo Basics teaches you all the fundamentals of this Korean martial art form in a clear and easy-to-understand manner This basic introductory survey contains the following vital information: The origins, philosophy, and history of Taekwondo How to find a teacher and a class that are right for you Getting ready for your first class--what actually happens in a Taekwondo class? The essential elements--stances, blocks, hand and arm strikes, and kicks How to complement your Taekwondo training with other conditioning exercises, such as running and biking Powerful ways to improve your technique through target training, partner training, competitive training, free-sparring, and more Resources that can help you further develop your Taekwondo practice Whether you're just getting started, or you've already been training for a year or two, Taekwondo Basics offers an easy to read, yet comprehensive, introduction to the sport. ...Show more

Church of the Open Sky by Nat Young

$34.99 AUD

Category: Biography and Memoir | Reading Level: 3 Biography

What makes for a surfing life? With a blaze of groundbreaking performances and a swag of titles claimed from all over the world to his name, Australian world champion surfer Nat Young might know. His seventieth birthday inspired some reflection on exactly that, and on the waves and characters that have marked his remarkable life - Miki Dora and Midget Farrelly to name a few. But surfing for Nat Young - and so many like-minded surfers - has never been about winning, never been about the sport. It's a calling, an endless quest, a philosophy, a religion. Most of all, surfing is a way of life that has underpinned his other identities as board shaper, film producer, writer, raconteur, conservationist, activist, pilot, husband, father. Candid and wryly observed, Church of the Open Sky explores what it means to be a surfer, with a collection of true stories of Nat's surfing life - and the friends, foes and heroes he's met along the way. ...Show more

Bruce Lee The Tao of Gung Fu by Bruce Lee

$19.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness | Reading Level: General Adult

In the months leading up to his death, Bruce Lee was working on this definitive study of the Chinese martial arts—collectively known as Kung Fu or Gung Fu. This book has now been edited and is published here for the first time in its entirety. Bruce Lee totally revolutionized the practice of martial ar ts and brought them into the modern world—by promoting the idea that students have the right to pick and choose those techniques and training regimens which suit their own personal needs and fighting styles. He developed a new style of his own called Jeet Kune Do—combining many elements from different masters and different traditions. This was considered heretical at the time within martial arts circles, where one was expected to study with only a single master—and Lee was the first martial artist to attempt this. Today he is revered as the "father" of martial arts practice around the world—including Mixed Martial Arts. In addition to presenting the fundamental techniques, mindset and training methods of traditional Chinese martial arts, this marial art treatise explores such esoteric topics as Taoism and Zen as applied to Gung Fu, Eastern and Western fitness regimens and self-defense techniques. Also included is a Gung Fu "scrapbook" of Bruce Lee's own personal anecdotes regarding the history and traditions of the martial arts of China. After Lee's death, his manuscript was completed and edited by martialarts expert John Little in cooperation with the Bruce Lee Estate. This book features an introduction by his wife, Linda Lee Cadwell and a foreword from his close friend and student, Taky Kimura. This Bruce Lee Book is part of the Bruce Lee Library which also features: Bruce Lee: Striking Thoughts Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon Bruce Lee: Artist of Life Bruce Lee: Letters of the Dragon Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body Bruce Lee: Jeet Kune Do ...Show more

Essential Karate Book - For White Belts, Black Belts and All Levels in Between [Companion Video Included] by Graeme Lund; Morne Swanepoel (Foreword by)

$24.99 AUD

Category: Sport and Fitness

The Essential Karate Book is an informative, illustrated guide to the techniques, philosophy and practice of karate. With 20 chapters covering practically every aspect of karate, this in-depth reference will assist students and instructors as they plot their course through karate instruction, benefiting those at all levels. The Essential Karate Book contains 200 diagrams mapping out moves with 300 step-by-step photographs and companion videos, making it a comprehensive general karate reference for Western audiences. Readers of this karate guide will learn about: Stances, blocks, strikes and kicks Preparing your body through warm-ups, stretching, and conditioning through karate-specific exercises Kata grading and fighting (kumite) techniques and competition rules Martial arts weapons (kobudo), and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) applications The origins and history of karate Required behavior, clothing and etiquette, as well as the fundamentals of karate and the different styles that share themThe Essential Karate Book is a must-have for any martial arts enthusiast, from beginners to black belts ...Show more