AustLit

'On 16th October 1968, the image of two black American athletes, heads bowed, black gloved fists raised into the night sky in the so called "Black Power" salute, rocked the Olympic Movement to its very core and also sent shockwaves throughout the world; a world already reeling from the recent assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy, China's Cultural Revolution, the brutal murder of hundreds of Mexican students, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.

'In the intervening 40 years, the salute has become an iconic image, not only of the Olympics, but of the 20th Century. While most focus their attention on the Americans, there was a third individual on the 200 metres victory dais that night. A Race to Remember : The Peter Norman Story is the biography of the white Australian who stood tall, proudly wearing, alongside his silver medal, a civil rights badge in support of the silent protest made agains racial discrimination. For the first time ever, the full story of the protest is told with input from all three Olympic medallists.

'Norman's life was never the same after the Olympics. In ensuing years he paid a heavy price for his fame. He turned his back on his Salvation Army faith; walked out on his first wife and three young children; remarried and had a second family; suffered an horrendous injury during an ill-fated comeback to athletics aged 42; battled alcohol and prescription drug abuse; and died suddenly aged 64 following quadruple heart surgery.'

'Olympian, activist, humanist, father - Peter Norman was many things to many people. However the one indisputable truth is, because of Norman's efforts in that famous race, he remains the most successful male sprinter in Australia's proud Olympic history. (Publisher's blurb)