The Agony of Victory: When Winning Isn’t Enough - On Sale October 3, 2007 Buy the Book
Meet the swiftest and saddest cyclist of his time, a man whose craving for speed was outstripped only by a terrible urge toward self-annihilation. See the greatest bowler who ever lived, a scrawny junior high school drop out and hard-drinking multi-millionaire who could never stop trying—and failing—to measure up to his father. Try to understand the most accomplished high school runner in American history, a boy who set distance records that still astound, a man who abandoned his wife and three small children, adopted a false identity, flew to Hawaii and was discovered selling water filled insoles called "Happy Feet" from a kiosk on Waikiki beach.
Read the tales of fourteen ravaged champions and their painful journeys to grace.
"Friedman tells the stories you never see in the sports pages, tracing the fine line between passion and obsession and delivering brutally touching dispatches from the broken and dark hearts of champions. This book is flat out fascinating."--MICHAEL CONNELLY
"Friedman raises sportswriting to the level of literature."--Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life
"Mordant, sad, hilarious and altogether unpredictable." --Eric Konigsberg, author of Blood Relation
