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Jan 18, 2025 | 
koreatimes.co.kr | Todd Balf
By Todd BalfTen years ago, a radical spine cancer surgery simultaneously saved my life and disabled me. I had been a very active person, but after surgery, my legs were partially paralyzed. Initially, I leaned on stories of fellow athletes who overcame significant physical handicaps to do their thing again; paralyzed mountain bikers, prosthesis-wearing climbers, blind marathoners, each adapting to achieve milestones in their arenas.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
thebrunswicknews.com | Todd Balf
By Todd Balf, Los Angeles Times Ten years ago, a radical spine cancer surgery simultaneously saved my life and disabled me. I had been a very active person, but after surgery, my legs were partially paralyzed. Initially, I leaned on stories of fellow athletes who overcame significant physical handicaps to do their thing again; paralyzed mountain bikers, prosthesis-wearing climbers, blind marathoners, each adapting to achieve milestones in their arenas.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
miamiherald.com | Todd Balf
Ten years ago, a radical spine cancer surgery simultaneously saved my life and disabled me. I had been a very active person, but after surgery, my legs were partially paralyzed. Initially, I leaned on stories of fellow athletes who overcame significant physical handicaps to do their thing again; paralyzed mountain bikers, prosthesis-wearing climbers, blind marathoners, each adapting to achieve milestones in their arenas.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
msn.com | Todd Balf
Continue reading More for You Continue reading More for You
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Aug 2, 2024 | 
washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com | Todd Balf
In considering this fine book, it’s best not to dwell on the title. The central figures were not kings but Olympic swimmers: Johnny Weissmuller (whose claim to royalty consisted of portraying the “lord of the jungle” in the Tarzan movies), Duke Kahanamoku (whose noble status lay in his given name), and Katsuo Takaishi of Japan (an aquatic pioneer in his home country, but not an international champion like the other two). Also beware the subtitle.
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Jul 28, 2024 | 
audiofilemagazine.com | Todd Balf
Edoardo Ballerini's perfect pacing and smooth delivery are worthy of the podium in this narrative about a little-remembered episode from the 1924 Paris Olympics.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
airmail.news | Todd Balf
To say the Yanks were excited to arrive in Paris for the 1924 Summer Olympics is an understatement. Some 350 of them sailed from New York. They were at sea for more than a week, training on the deck of a ship moving slowly across the Atlantic. The U.S. Rugby team, forbidden to disembark in Boulogne because of a visa snafu, charged off the ship anyway, scattering the gendarmes. “You watch us!” athlete Norman Cleaveland yelled at them.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
kuow.org | Todd Balf
The cover of "Three Kings" and author Todd Balf. (Courtesy of Blackstone Publishing and Everand and Patricia Adams) The book “Three Kings: Race, Class, and the Barrier-Breaking Rivals Who Redefined Sports and Launched the Modern Olympic Age” tells the story of three swimmers who overcame discrimination and hardships on their road to becoming superstars. The three met at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924.
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Todd Balf |Scottie Pippen |Michael Arkush |Chris Smith
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests. The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some. Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Todd Balf
Ever since I had a stroke five years ago, I have worried about dementia. I remember a task, then immediately forget about it. Water is poured, then left. Rooms are entered, then I can’t remember why. Pills are taken. Or are they? In a “60 Minutes” segment a while back, a researcher explained the science of losing your mind. She had been studying high-functioning nonagenarians in California for years.
