‘The Gods of Olympia’ by Valerio Iafrate, from Athens to Rio between winners and losers

The Olympics, the games capable of stopping wars throughout the ancient Greek world, are the protagonists of the book ‘The Gods of Olympia’, just released by the Albatros publishing house, and written by Valerio Iafrate, journalist, responsible for the communication of events sports Rai, which starts from the first Olympic Games of the modern era in Athens to arrive, after 30 Olympic Games, every four years, up to the thirty-first, in Brazil. “From Athens 1896 to Rio 2016, in one hundred and twenty years, Olympic history has experienced an alternation of sensational victories and thunderous defeats, of exploits at the limit of human possibilities and Homeric falls, of medals won at the first attempt and of laurels pursued for years without luck. The Olympic history, in this sense – reads the back cover – is the paradigm of life itself, a breathless alternation of joys and pains, tears and smiles. In a word, of emotions. to condense all this into a book the path chosen by Valerio Iafrate was only one: to tell stories instead of history “. ‘”The Gods of Olympia’ is a collection of stories, a long thread of five colors – as many as those of the Olympic Circles – which winds from Athens to Rio and embraces winners and losers, teams and individual athletes, heroes of a day alone and predestined for glory. That same colored thread that, every four years, crosses the life of every sports fan, and holds him tight, for two weeks, with the same energy as runners, fencers, swimmers and basketball players . For fifteen days, every four years, everyone feels the same emotion, everyone becomes an athlete, everyone turns into a ‘god’ of Olympia “.