Against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, the 1980 Moscow Olympics was always going to be political. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wanted Australia’s Olympic athletes to boycott the Games, in line with the USA, but many of the athletes had a different view and competed under the Olympic flag. In Turning the Tide, 800 metres Swimming Gold Medal winner, Michelle Ford, charts the highs and lows from the beaches of Sydney as a young girl with a dream to the dizzy heights of Olympic swimming gold against the odds of Cold-War politics spilling into sport like poison. Olympic boycotts, death threats, wilful blindness and misogyny coincided with the first and most ferocious, systematic, state-sponsored doping the world has ever witnessed. Whatever flag they competed under at Moscow, athletes were the victims - and most of them female. According to Ford, who was Australia’s first and founding member of the International Olympic Committee's Athletes Commission, that struggle is far from over. As Paris prepares to host the 2024 Olympics, 100 years after the Modern Olympics founding father Pierre de Coubertin declared that “Women have one task, that of the role of crowning the winner with garlands”, an indifference to female athletes lives on. In this roller-coaster account of courage and resilience in the Olympic realm, Turning the Tide is a manifesto for change.
Michelle Ford-Eriksson MBE from Sydney, Australia was an Olympic gold and bronze medallist in swimming in 1980, and dual world record holder. She is a University of Southern California graduate with a master’s degree in Sports Psychology and a bachelor’s degree in business communication. She has held directorships of the Australian Sports Commission, Australian Sports Foundation, and Swimming Australia. Michelle was a member of the first IOC Athletes Commission, Australia’s first member of this important Commission, alongside the current IOC President, Thomas Bach, and Sebastian Coe, President World Athletics. Michelle was a member of the first IOC Athletes Commission, Australia’s first member of this important Commission, alongside the current IOC President, Thomas Bach, and Sebastian Coe, President World Athletics.
Craig Lord is an award-winning swimming and Olympic correspondent who has been writing for the Times and Sunday Times for more than three decades. Described by the World Swimming Coaches Association as “the conscience of swimming”, Craig has been at the forefront of breaking news on doping, governance scandals, and how those impact the lives of athletes, coaches, parents and communities.
* Autobiography of Australian Olympic Gold Medallist written with one of the foremost swimming journalists in the world.
* Released in time for International Women's Day and on the eve of the Paris Olympics.
* A tale of boycotts, death threats, misogyny, and state-sanctioned doping.
* Set against the backdrop of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Publicity:
* Whitney Erickson, Watterson PR. Michelle Ford and Craig Lord will be in Sydney to launch the book at Gleebooks on March 7th. They will also appear at the inaugural Manly Writers' Festival from 14-16 March 2024.
