Beijing update for walking Olympics encyclopaedia

At 12, father took him to Rome Olympics when the games came home to LA, he found his calling

David Wallechinsky is so sure of every fact to do with the Olympics that you don8217;t want to shatter the illusion. Waiting patiently at the appointed place, he tells you, why were you walking in the wrong direction 8212; I saw you and wondered, why is she going the other way?

That was not you. But you do not tell him that he8217;s wrong. That possibility does not exist.

Wallechinsky8217;s The Complete Book of the Olympics, updated every four years, is possibly the most essential part of a Games reporter8217;s work-kit. At the media centre, they refer to it for perspective. They beg and borrow their neighbour8217;s copy to check facts. And to find moments of meditational calm amid thousands of journalists working 24/7 between them, they read once again the favourite stories that make the Olympics the most special sports event.

Smitten by the Olympics at the age of 12 when his father took him for the opening ceremony of the Rome Olympics, Wallechinsky8217;s interest was reignited in 1984 when the Games came to his hometown, Los Angeles. 8220;I wanted to read a book about Olympics results and stories,8221; he says. 8220;It didn8217;t exist. So I thought, I8217;ll write it.8221; before national Olympic committees archived their records systematically, he went from library to NOC office to university with personal collections of athletes. 8220;We photocopied everything.8221;

So, when India marks its absence in an Olympics celebrating a century of field hockey, his book has mention of an incident in the Indian dressing room in the 1936 Berlin Olympics: 8220;As a British colony, India was forced to march behind the flag of Great Britain. But in the dressing room before their final match against Germany, the Indian saluted the tricolour flag of the Indian National Congress.8221; India won 8-1, with Dhyan Chand taking six barefooted.

So what is his favourite sport? 8220;Athletics. Running is the basic sport. Anyone can do it well, rich or poor, from hot country or cold.8221; Wallechinsky prefers the races, 800 m and more, the races that are not run in lanes. Then, he says, the athlete has to use her brain too.

And gaining a longer view of the history of sport every four years, when each fact and every story are revisited, he finds some trends. For instance, the cluster effect a sport has in different countries. 8220;If an Indian runner were to win the marathon,8221; he says, 8220;all children would want to be marathon runners.8221; Perhaps, instead we will now see all children wanting to get themselves a rifle and punch holes in black pieces of paper.

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Or take the women of East Africa. 8220;When they first started running,8221; says Wallechinsky, 8220;they were made fun of.8221; And once the medals came, most recently to the Dibaba sisters, every girl wanted to be a middle or long-distance runner.

Given that many revisions of Olympics statistics in recent years have been prompted by revelations of doping, Wallechinsky has a healthy doubt about world records. But, he says, reflecting the one dominant theme of these Games so far, 8220;I8217;m not talking about Phelps.8221;

And the Phelps legacy? Wallechinsky will be tackling that two years from now.