The enthralling history of one of the most controversial and infamous Olympic Games ever staged, replete with doping scandal and international uproarIn the summer that saw the first successful zeppelin flight, a 140 acre site of scrubland in West London was transformed into the White City, which housed a state-of-the-art stadium built for the first London Olympics. The Olympics were organized by volunteers in just 18 months and at a fraction of the cost of the modern Olympics, and yet, just as today, the sport was overshadowed by doping scandals—with accusations that the Canadian favorite for the marathon had been dosed with strychnine—and caused international uproar. The ferocious competitiveness of a U.S. team dominated by New York Irish Americans led to a succession of "scandals" culminating in the historic marathon when Italian confectioner baker Dorando Pietri"s heroic efforts at the limits of exhaustion so entranced onlookers that track officials helped him across the finish...