Did you know that tonight the Australian book industry is being represented in the Olympics?
That’s right!
On the athletics track tonight, (Australian time) a Booktopia employee, Anthony Alozie, will be competing for Australia in the heats of the Men’s 4 x 100 metre relay.
When Anthony is not training and competing around Australia and the world he works casually for us in our Distribution Centre.
The Australian Men’s Relay Team are not favoured to make the final but let’s cheer them on and hope they do the best they can on the day.
Regards
Tony Nash
Chief Executive Officer
Booktopia
From the Australian Olympic Team website:
Olympic Information
Debut
Recent Performances
3rd (4x100m) – 2012 Shizuoka International Meeting (Shizuoka, Japan)
2nd (100m) – 2012 Brisbane Track Classic (Brisbane, Australia)
1st (100m) – 2012 Perth Track Classic (Perth, Australia)
4th (100m) – 2012 Sydney Track Classic (Sydney, Australia)
3rd (100m) – 2012 Melbourne Australian Open (Melbourne, Australia)
Career Highlights
2007 – My first Australian championships, running a personal best time of 10.24 to qualify for the 100m final but I succumbed to an injury before the race.
2008 – Finishing second in the B race in a season’s best time of 10.56 at the World Athletics Tour in Melbourne.
Interesting Facts
Anthony Alozie was a local soccer player in his native Nigeria. He started running when an athletics coach spotted him at one of his soccer games. He was impressed by Alozie’s speed with the ball and invited him to start sprint training.
Alozie and the coach kept in contact and eventually he was convinced he had a promising talent in sprinting. He dreams of being a superstar and a role model in track and field.
At his first world championships in 2009 Alozie joined teammates Matt Davies, Josh Ross and Aaron Rouge-Serret in placing third in their heat of the 4x100m relay, their season’s best time of 38.93 not enough to advance to the deciding round.
At the 2011 world championships he raced the 4x100m and clocked 38.69 for fourth in the heat.
Alozie came to Australia from Nigeria for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. He decided to stay and took out citizenship.
Images and info thanks to Australian Olympic Committee
About the Contributor
John Purcell
While still in his twenties, John Purcell opened a second-hand bookshop in Mosman, Sydney, in which he sat for ten years reading, ranting and writing. Since then he has written, under a pseudonym, a series of very successful novels, interviewed hundreds of writers about their work, appeared at writers’ festivals, on TV (most bizarrely in comedian Luke McGregor’s documentary Luke Warm Sex) and has been featured in prominent newspapers and magazines. Now, as the Director of Books at booktopia.com.au, Australia’s largest online bookseller, he supports Australian writing in all its forms. He lives in Sydney with his wife, two children, three dogs, five cats, unnumbered gold fish and his overlarge book collection. His novel, The Girl on the Page, will be published by HarperCollins Australia in October, 2018.
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