The Australian Bite

200 years of Australian sporting highlights

27 January 2011

Listen and download: MP3

This week in the last of our special summer series of the Bite, an extended interview with veteran sports journalist Ian Heads, about his recently released book, co-authered with Gary Lester, called  And the crowd went wild: sporting days that thrilled a nation.

200 years of sporting thrills and spills

If we look back at the last two hundred years in Australian sport there have been many memorable moments. Like Australia’s history-making Americas Cup yacht race win in 1983; Don Bradman’s record-breaking innings of 334 in the third Ashes test at Leeds in 1930; and Cathy Freeman winning the 400 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Well these events and many more are detailed in a new book called And the Crowd Went Wild: Sporting Days that Thrilled a Nation. The book celebrates 200 years of major Australian sporting events and achievements, beginning with the the Great Race Carnival of 1810, and ending with the Vancouver Winter Olympics held earlier this year. Veteran sports journalists Ian Heads and Gary Lester co-authored the book, and Ian Heads me to talk about it.

And the Crowd Went Wild: Sporting Days that Thrilled a Nation is published in Australia by Playwright Publishing

Music: (not in podcast)

We hear the new single from Sydney electronic/dance outfit Art vs. Science, from their forthcoming album due for release in February.

Artist: Art vs. Science

Track: Finally See Our Way

Album: The Experiment (due for release Feb 2011)

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