Martial Arts: The Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, dedicated a poem to judo: “Do not be afraid of danger, withdraw your terror. To conquer all obstacles you have to awaken your power. Help the weak, defeat the Do not judge yourself as a pitiful and discouraged man. Withdraw your terror and believe in your own power.”
Athletics: The Japanese Haruki Murakami took up running late, at the age of 33, and could not stop. He told it in 2007 in ‘What I talk about when I talk about running’. In 1991 he finished the New York City Marathon in 3:31:26.
Badminton: Indian novelist Saskya Jain has just published ‘Geeta Rahman’s Championship Point’, the story of a promising young badminton player, set against the backdrop of the changes her country experienced in the 1990s.
Baloncesto: The novel ‘Diary of a Rebel’ came out of the life experience of American Jim Carroll, later brought to the screen with Leonardo DiCaprio as the protagonist. In 1978, the multifaceted artist from Andy Wharhol’s circle published ‘Basketball Diaries’, a narrative about his double life as an outstanding college player and, at the same time, a heroin addict.
Handball: Antonio Rodríguez Lorca was a poet from Granada who also served as a handball coach and referee. He brought both facets together in the pages of ‘Poetics of handball’, reissued and revised in 2007 under the title ‘The poetry of handball seen from Cádiz’.
Boxing: Another Nobel Prize winner, Ernest Hemingway, wrote many lines about boxing. He practiced it himself under the name of ‘Kid Balzac’ and scheduled ‘sparring’ sessions with great professionals; but these soon realized that the author “lacked waist”.
Breaking: The new Olympic sport sneaks into the pages of ‘Dancing in Dreamtime’, a collection of stories by the American novelist and essayist Scott Sanders.
Cycling: Cycling has given great pages to literature. Pablo Neruda wrote an ‘Ode to the bicycle’, one of whose stanzas says: “The bicycles passed by me, the only insects of that dry minute of summer, stealthy, fast, transparent: they seemed to me only movements of the air”.
Climbing: Sport climbing is a young sport, without a literary tradition. But the original climbing is an activity many authors found material to novelize; among others, Martín Casariego in ‘A friend like this’ (2013).
Fencing: The limp he suffered from led Lord Byron to become fond of swimming, because in the water the malformation he suffered in one foot was not perceived. But the great romantic poet was also a boxer, a horseman and an expert fencer. Photographs of the equipment with which he practiced this sport are preserved.
Soccer: French Nobel laureate Albert Camus is just one of hundreds of writers captivated by the beautiful game. But only he pronounced the great phrase: “What I finally know with greater certainty regarding the morals and obligations of men, I owe to football.”
Gym: Leo Tolstoy, teacher of Russian literature, author of ‘Anna Karenina’, was obsessed in his youth with his physical appearance and was very fond of gymnastics. He practiced at a bar that is still on his former estate in Yasnaya Polyana. He never lost his love for the sport and at the age of 66 he learned to ride a bicycle.
Golf: Richard Ford, author of ‘The Sports Journalist’, collected in his autobiography ‘Flowers in the cracks’ a revealing episode of racism related to golf, in Arkansas in 1960. The skills and patience required to play then allowed, according to Ford , “make life more bearable”.
Weightlifting: British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks became obsessed with weightlifting. In his autobiography ‘On the move. A life ‘tells how he began to practice that activity at the same time as writing and how it shaped his character and improved his self-image.
Horse riding: One of the ten best-selling children’s books in history is ‘Azabache’ (‘Black Beauty’), by the British Anna Sewell (1877), narrated in the first person by a horse.
Hockey: Field hockey is not a sport much considered by fiction writers, unlike its brother ice hockey. However, there are very elaborate essays like the one presented just two weeks ago, ‘Press, women and hockey’, by Rodolfo Riera Oliver. The author’s daughter, Lola Riera, is an Olympic player with the Spanish team.
Lucha: The great Greek philosopher Plato was actually called Aristocles. His nickname, which means ‘broad back’, was given to him in the gym where he practiced wrestling. He participated in the Isthmian Games.
swimming: The Spanish academic Soledad Puértolas has been swimming daily for many years and likes to talk and write about it. She believes that swimming was, at one point in her life, her lifeline.
Modern Pentathlon: Andy Archibald, modern pentathlon Olympic champion at the ’76 Montreal Games, took advantage of the London 2012 edition years later to write ‘Modern Pentathlon, a centenary story’, considered ‘the bible’ of this sport.
Canoeing: The best Spanish travel writer of recent decades, the late Javier Reverte, described in ‘The River of Light’ a fascinating journey through Alaska, in which, after learning to handle a canoe when he was already a certain age, he went up the mythical Yukon River. He recounts endless days not without risk.
Remo: The British Daniel Topolski was rowing world champion in 1977. Later he was a prominent author of travel books and a chronicler for the BBC. In 1991 he won the award for best British sports book with a play on the Oxford-Cambridge regatta.
Rugby: The Argentine Manuel Soriano, winner of the Clarín Prize in 2015, had published ‘Rugby’ five years earlier, a fiction about the fatal consequences of a night of excesses committed during the ‘third period’.
Skate: The very football fan Nick Hornby was introduced to the twists and turns of a much younger sport, ‘skate’, in his novel ‘All for a girl’, a highly sensitive story about the insecurities of adolescence.
Surf: Agatha Christie, the best-selling writer of all time, was a regular surfer. On the beaches of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1927 she found the perfect setting to ride the waves and, incidentally, cure herself of a depression that had caused her disappointment in love.
Tennis: American novelist David Foster Wallace was an outstanding junior tennis player. The fondness for “the most beautiful sport that exists” lasted his whole life. Impressions of him were published posthumously in 2016 in ‘String Theory’.
Table tennis: Winston Groom’s novel ‘Forrest Gump’, later turned into a famous and award-winning film, includes an anthological scene in which the protagonist plays a ping-pong championship in China.
Tiro: American Pulitzer Prize winner (2003) Stephen Hunter, author of intrigue and political fiction novels, draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of firearms. He spends his time almost equally writing and shooting at a shooting gallery near his home in Baltimore, an activity he considers “very sensual.”
archery: In ‘The Odyssey’, Homer narrates how Penelope puts her suitors to the test by holding out Ulysses’ bow and challenging them to compete to marry her. None of them even manage to tense it.
Triathlon: The writer, speaker and businessman from Barcelona Josef Ajram is a high-level amateur athlete who has participated in several ironman triathlons all over the planet.
Vela: The most popular sailing ship in universal literature is the frigate ‘La Hispaniola’, on which Jim Hawkins embarked towards ‘Treasure Island’ designed by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Volleyball: The ‘mangaka’ Haruichi Furudate is the author of the popular series ‘Haikyu!!’, which narrates the adventures of Shoyo Hinata, a boy determined to succeed in volleyball despite his small stature. The series reached 402 chapters, collected in 45 volumes.
