SportsBiography
Barefoot in Rome
A shepherd's son from Ethiopia was added to his Olympic team at the last minute. On a torchlit night in Rome in 1960, he ran the marathon with no shoes on.
Sports Legends
Athletes who rose from hardship, lifted their families and made their countries proud.
For all ages · 10 stories
SportsBiography
Four Golds in Berlin
The grandson of enslaved people, born to a poor farming family in Alabama, went to the 1936 Olympic Games in Hitler's Germany and won four gold medals.
SportsBiography
The Boxing Mother
The daughter of poor farmers in the hills of Manipur hid her boxing from her own father. She went on to become a world champion again and again, even after becoming a mother of three.
SportsBiography
The Boy from Khandra
A farmer's son from a village in Haryana was taken to a stadium to lose a little weight. There he picked up a javelin, and years later he threw it to India's first Olympic gold in athletics.
SportsBiography
The Dhing Express
A rice farmer's daughter from a village in Assam used to play football in the paddy fields. In 2018, she became the first Indian to win a world title on the running track.
SportsBiography
The Flying Sikh
A boy who lost almost everything in the Partition of India found his way to an army running track, and then to the fastest races in the world.
SportsBiography
The Girl Who Carried Firewood
As a child in Manipur, she lifted a bundle of firewood her older brother could not. Years later, after a painful failure at the Olympics, she lifted India's first medal of the Tokyo Games.
SportsBiography
The Hockey Wizard
A young soldier who practised hockey after duty, by the light of the moon, led India to three Olympic gold medals and became a legend of the game.
SportsBiography
The Shoeshine Boy Who Won the World Cup
A poor boy in Brazil, who played barefoot with a ball made of socks, once saw his father cry over a lost World Cup. Eight years later, aged seventeen, he kept a promise.
SportsBiography
The Stolen Bicycle
A twelve-year-old boy in Louisville lost his new bicycle and walked, furious, into a basement boxing gym. He became Muhammad Ali, and one day he risked everything for what he believed.