A Track Stats Special, 2024

60 A5 pages, illustrated throughout

Athletics is one of the most inclusive of modern sports, yet in the eighteenth century black runners, walkers and jumpers were so rarely seen that they were identified in the press only by their colour. Sports such as boxing, cricket and football can list their black players from the beginning. Athletics histories go back no further than Arthur Wharton, the champion sprinter in 1886 who was better known as a footballer. This new study for Black History Month by Peter Lovesey fills the void, rediscovering named athletes as far back as Levi Baldwin in 1805, whose reported time of 9.2 seconds for 100 yards was faster than Wharton, Jesse Owens or Linford Christie. If authentic, Baldwin would have been a good match for Usain Bolt.

The stories of thirty-six pioneers from Baldwin to the international sprinter Ethel Scott in the 1920s are entertaining and surprising, as a glance through the index promises. Who could resist the Female Deerfoot; the Go-As-You-Please Man: the Black Trumpeter; the Ebony Phenomenon; the Retrograding Pedestrian; or the Man Who Grappled with Ivan the Terrible? The account of Jack London, double Olympic Medallist from 1928, "the outstanding example of a talent unfulfilled," reveals elements of his personality that explain why he was the despair of everyone who tried to coach him.

Peter Lovesey has been writing about athletics for over sixty years. Best known as a crime novelist, he has been a freelance writer since 1975.

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