Customer Reviews

As Good As Gold: 1 Woman, 9 Sports, 10 Countries, and a 2-Year Quest to Make the Summer Olympics

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kathryn Bertine has written an amazing story here. The experience from the rink to the shell to the pool to the bike is great. Now, I want to book a flight to St. Kits and Nevis, and am rooting for her to succeed in London! If you like sports, if you are an athlete, if you have ever been on a bike, or if you even like to laugh, this is the perfect book for you.

This book arrived in the mail for me on Sat, and I read it in one sitting, going back and forth between inspired to follow my own dreams, and cackling on my couch at the hilarious aspects of the story.

Please, PLEASE give this book a try. I promise that you won't regret it!

My wife and I are endurance athletes so we really appreciate that performing well in competition is much more about the preparation and training than what takes place during the event itself. Kathryn Bertine knew this when the ESPN editors called her with the wild idea of giving her 2 years to make the Olympics 'in the sport of her choice'. We commented as we read the book about what guts it took for Bertine to even attempt to get a tryout for nine Olympic sports. How she did that, went through the tryouts themselves, found a sport she had a chance to excel in and then literally worked her butt off in that sport for months comprise the bulk of this book.

We felt the sweat, the tears, the pain, the few highs and the many lows but what we liked the most was that apparent defeat never kept the author down. We both went from sobbing at the depths of her resolve and efforts to laughing out loud at the hilarity of so many of her experiences. It was a great roller coaster ride, all accomplished with only words in print. What more could you ask from an author? A professional athlete who is a real writer! Who knew?!

A wonderful gift that thankful fathers can give their athlete daughters!

Kathryn Bertine has written a great book about an amazing challenge. Imagine combining one of Dave Gorman's crazy challenges, a Lance Armstrong memoir, and a race against time thriller, throw in a bit of the 'Amazing Race' and shake; add a lady with guts and determination, who is just a little bit crazy, and you have a thoroughly enjoyable read.

The author has a great sense of humor and an easy writing style that has you rollicking through the book as quick as she cycles! She writes with an honesty that has you rooting for her throughout! Inspiring stuff indeed!

Good luck for 2012 Kathryn. I hope to read about your continuing journey.

Kathryn Bertine has written an engaging first-person account of her quest to make an Olympic team, any Olympic team, at just about any sport and for any country. I first learned about her when I read her debut book, "All the Sundays Yet to Come: a Skater's Journey." No way you could have ever gotten me to read a book about ice skating, but it was a terrific book and a journey of her self-discovery during that phase of her life.

In her latest book, she expands upon the blog that she kept under an arrangement with ESPN Magazine to chronicle her attempt to make the 2008 Olympics. She attempts to make the US Olympic team in disciplines including: modern pentathlon, open water swimming, team handball, triathlon, rowing and bicycling. Unable to make the Olympic squad at any of these sports in the United States, she searches for citizenship from a list of countries in order to find one that will allow her to be competitive enough to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

Earlier generations had George Plimpton. We have Kathryn Bertine, through which we can vicariously live our (and her) athletic fantasies. The fact that she was ultimately unsuccessful in making any Olympic team or in competing at the Olympics does not diminish the fact that her passion and wit shines through this book. She has an engaging writing style and a self-effacing sense of humor.

Some participants in these respective sports might find it insulting for anyone to have the pretensions of being able to just show up and make an Olympic team. Nowadays in sport as in other realms, specialization abounds. When I grew up, you could go to high school and try out for a team with a sport that you had never participated in and still have a good shot at making the squad. Nowadays, no matter what activity you choose, there is probably some kid who's been doing it and receiving individualized coaching in it since he or she was in utero.

In the end, the journey is the reward here. The reward this time for Ms. Bertine is not going to be either a gold medal or a slot on any Olympic squad, at least not in 2008. Nevertheless, she explores worthy dimensions of her own self-awareness, her own limitations, and vividly translates this into a sports book that is "as good as gold"!

Ever want to contact a writer when only part way through their book to thank them because you love it so much already that you can't wait till you're finished? Ever feel disappointed that a book has finished because the experience was so intense and true? This was that book for me.

As a runner/triathlete, I love reading books from real athletes who write well. Kathryn Bertine is the best example of this I have seen since John Parker of Once a Runner fame. I read this book in one sitting, laughing out loud here and there. She captures the intensity and emotion of the sports like no one else. Her description of the life and travails of an athlete ring truer than true.

Highly recommended.

I loved the original ESPN series and this book is just as good. This book will appeal to athetes and non-athletes alike. For the athletes amoung us, this is a book you can relate to. I am sure many of us have wondered "what if"? What if I could devote myself full to a sport? Kathryn Bertine had that opportunity and she made the most of it. If you are not an athlete, this underdog story is a very, very humorous travel adventure. If you are not an athlete but like/love the olympics this book will give you a ring side seat for the struggles necessary to make it to the olympics.

I read the original series on the ESPN website and the last one left me hanging. I am really glad this book came out to fill in more detail. I only wish ESPN had allowed her to continue to write for them as she continues on her journey. I can no tell you sufficiently how funny this book really is, I highly recommend it.

I loathe most books on sports with good reason: they are usually trite, cliched, recollections of either individual or team success. What makes Kathryn Bertine's account of attempting to qualify for the Olympics so engrossingly entertaining and surprisingly poignant? To date, she's failed in her Olympic dreams and succeeded in redefining the athlete's journey, which is what the reader really wants to understand better.

Bertine's As Good As Gold is a fast, good humored account of her previous athletic exploits, exploration of the lesser known Olympic sports, and return to her adult roots as a road cyclist.

This is a modern athlete's journey, supported and catalyzed by an ESPN boardroom interested in knowing: really, just how hard could it be to qualify for the Olympics. To what extent will a woman in her early 30s go to fulfill such a dream? Read the book and discover Kathryn's domestic experiences in some of the more esoteric sports (read: pentathalon, luge, race walking, team handball), the race to collect international cycling points on multiple continents, and the meaning of global citizenship.

As Good As Gold deserves more exposure than it has received so far. This is not a book on cycling. It's part Dave Barry on a bike, part Bruce Chatwin in the unknown: first person tone, light hearted, insightful, honest. This book has almost as much potential as does its author.

Although the title refers to Kathryn Bertine's journey to make it to the Olympics, the title is quite fitting, for the book itself is a gem. As Good as Gold brings the reader on a journey from average (or very good) athlete to Olympic Hopeful. It reminded me that most dreams are worth the time, effort and dedication it might take to get to their destination. As a woman in my thirties, it was wonderful to read about the athletic pursuits of a member of my own generation. Bertine's writing style is never sappy or sloppy, often funny and a joy to read. Highly recommended for anyone who has ever had a dream (athletic or not).

Ever need a book to inspire you to get off your couch and do something? I can relate to Kathryn and her quest. Although I am not a professional athlete, I often wonder if I need to get off my butt and work for something. She did and as she said, you can't fail if you tried, because trying isn't failing, failing is NOT trying. I think everyone can take a lesson away from this book and if you are like be and afraid of being last Kathryn shows you its ok and in fact, it is about your personal battles!

So the next step, get off the couch and get moving!

Note: Kathryn is liberal and if by chance you happen to actually like George W. Bush, be warned... her comments are hysterical but you might not like them.

I first saw Kathryn Bertine's writing when she was doing a series of columns on [...] about trying to become an Olympian. This book is the results of her attempt, beginning in 2006, to qualify for the Beijing Summer Olympics.

Like probably 90% of everyone who knows about them, Bertine's goal was to find a sport where she could compete in the summer Olympics. Unlike the rest of us dreamers, though, she was an elite triathlete when she started. So, she had a leg up in trying to learn a sport and become an Olympian.

Her triathlon distance was ling than the Olympic distance, so she was not an automatic shoe-in for that team. The book chronicles her experiences in trying new sports, trying to find one where her natural and trained athletic abilities would be enough to get her in the door.

Her struggles with all the sports she tries as she pursues her goals will ring true to anyone who has played a sport that is a bit outside the mainstream. Still her writing makes all the hard work sound like fun and as a bit of humor and perspective to sore msucles, disappointing results, and the struggles of the beginner. The work she does in her training and the results she achieves lend credence to every amateur dreamer out there who sweats and bleeds while friends say "why do you bother." I particularly liked her "Mental Earplugs" section where she describes what an athlete hears.

She also has strong encouragement for women's athletics and how they should be treated on par with men's sports. And, she's right. Sports can go a long way to helping all of us develop ourselves, and her book should be of interest to anyone who is an amateur athlete or who supports the athletes in their lives.