Definitive and richly illustrated accounts of the century's most compelling sports stories

Sport and the 20th century are inextricably intertwined. What began as a pastime for gentlement amateurs is today an industry generating billions and stirring passions across the globe. Great sporting triumphs - and disasters - have provided some of the century's most enduring images and most imperishable memories.

The Sporting Century looks in detail at 50 of the most extraordinary and remarkable of these events: Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics, Roger Bannister's first four-minute mile, Brazil's magical third World Cup win in 1970, Ian Botham's single-handed demolition of the Australians in 1981. It also covers scandal and tragedy: the Munich air crash, the Hillsborough disaster, Ben Johnson's disgrace in Seoul. These, too, played their part in moulding our collective sporting memories and rank among the century's most memorable sporting stories.

Written entirely by leading sports journalists at the Sunday Times and based on the paper's sensational year-long coverage of the century's top sports stories, this is sports writing at its most compelling: provocative, incisive and dramatic.