Guardian sport writers Donald McRae and Andy Bull are among those included on the longlist for the 27th William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.
McRae has been nominated for A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith, while Bull has been nominated for Speed Kings, which tells the story of the disparate group of outsiders who became bobsledding champions at the 1932 Winter Olympics.
McRae has won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award already – in 1996 for Dark Trade and in 2002 for In Black & White: the Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. His latest work tells the extraordinary story of Griffith, a homosexual boxer who became a world champion in the 1960s. His best-known contest was a 1962 title match with Benny Paret. At the weigh-in, Paret infuriated Griffith by touching his buttocks and taunting him about his sexuality. Griffith won the bout by knockout; Paret never recovered consciousness and died in the hospital 10 days later.
The 27th William Hill Sports Book of the Year award longlist
The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert (Simon & Schuster)
Speed Kings by Andy Bull (Bantam Press)
Living on the Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager by Michael Calvin (Century)
The Trials of Oscar Pistorius: Chase Your Shadow by John Carlin (Atlantic Books)
Kings of the Road: A Journey into the Heart of British Cycling by Robert Dineen (Aurum Press)
A King in Hiding: How a Child Refugee Became a World Chess Champion by Fahim, Sophie Le Callennec, Xavier Parmentier and Barbara Mellor (translator) (Icon)
Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire by Martin Fletcher (Bloomsbury)
The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football by David Goldblatt (Viking)
Runner: A Short Story About A Long Run by Lizzy Hawker (Aurum Press)
Fire in Babylon by Simon Lister (Yellow Jersey)
A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith by Donald McRae (Simon & Schuster)
The Bolt Supremacy by Richard Moore (Yellow Jersey)
My Fight/Your Fight: The Official Ronda Rousey Autobiography by Ronda Rousey and Maria Burns Ortiz (Century)
Journeymen: The Other Side of the Boxing Business by Mark Turley (Pitch)
