RACE AROUND THE SPORTS WORLD
by Tony Hardy

BRAND NEW

'It was a once-in-a-lifetime, lazy sportsman's dream. I would cross oceans in a global search for sport.'

Sports tragic Tony Hardy sets off to see as many great events around the world as he can in 50 days. The problems? Hardy has a delicate constitution, suffers chronic homesickness and loathes leaving his couch.

Hardy's vivid, humorous prose will take sports fans everywhere on a laugh-out-loud journey, from New York, where he goes to the US Open at Flushing Meadows, and a Major League Baseball game between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, to Belfast for a World Cup Qualifier between England and Northern Ireland. In Dusseldorf for a famous ice-hockey derby, he escapes with singed ears from a fire-loving Turkish barber, only to be cornered while under the influence for a live interview on German Television. In Dublin at a hurling game he discovers goalkeepers who face death without armour. And at the Australian MotoGP on Phillip Island he finds lacy women's underwear flying from flags - and the greatest sportsman on the planet.

Hardy, a distinctive new voice in Australian sports writing, brilliantly depicts the passion, endeavour, absurdity, colour and humour that lie at the heart of every sport.