1. Muhammed Ali’s 1975 biography The Greatest: My Own Story relates a story about the gold medal the boxer won in the 1960 Rome Olympics. Did he:

   1. Melt it down

   2. Throw it in a river

   3. Send it back

   4. Give it to charity

2. So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Acropolis! / Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! / Athens is saved, thank Pan, go shout!" Whose poem about Pheidippides, runner of the first marathon, inspired the organisers of the revival of the Olympic games in 1896 to include the long distance race?

   1. Robert Browning

   2. Henry VIII

   3. Oscar Wilde

   4. Alfred Tennyson

3. Whose thriller sees eco-terrorists attempt to infect Olympic athletes with a deadly virus via the air-conditioning system at the Sydney Olympics?

   1. Tom Clancy

   2. Frederick Forsyth

   3. Alexander McCall Smith

   4. Margaret Atwood

4. Asterix and Obelix befriend a Roman sports champion in Asterix at the Olympic Games, in which the pair of Gauls compete in the Olympics but without their magic potion, which is banned by officials. Is the Roman athlete:

   1. Habeas Corpus

   2. Gluteus Maximus

   3. Biceps Gigantus

   4. Celeritas Magnus

5. Which politician starts their autobiography by relating they ran in a 4x100m Olympic relay?

   1. Margaret Thatcher

   2. John Prescott

   3. Tony Benn

   4. Menzies Campbell

6. Which poet is famous for the odes written in celebration of the victories of athletes in the Olympic games?

   1. Ovid

   2. Pindar

   3. TS Eliot

   4. Homer

7. Where does Rupert Campbell Black win his Olympic gold medal - despite having a broken arm - in Jilly Cooper's Riders?

   1. Sydney

   2. Rome

   3. Los Angeles

   4. Tokyo

8. They’re exciting, they’re Olympic, but which plot is at the centre of a recently-published thriller?

   1. An American agent is smuggled into the Moscow Olympics as part of the British team to assassinate Brezhnev

   2. The CIA is plotting a terrorist attack on the Beijing Olympics to destabilise the country

   3. An East London builder discovers a sinister fault in the plans for the 2012 stadium, inserted by the Russian mafia

   4. Eddie the Eagle finds himself at the centre of a drugs scandal in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

9. Which children’s author was threatened with legal action by the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics over their novel Olympic Mind Games?

   1. Maurice Sendak

   2. Robert Ronsson

   3. Eoin Colfer

   4. JK Rowling

10. Which lines come from John Betjeman’s poem The Olympian Girl?

    1. They fuck you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do

    2. On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts, /And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports

    3. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? /I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach

    4. Fair tigress of the tennis courts, / So short in sleeve and strong in shorts

Solutions

1:B, 2:A, 3:A, 4:B, 5:D, 6:B, 7:C, 8:B, 9:B, 10:D

Scores

1. 5 and above.

   Unplaced. You're Eng Lit's very own Eddie the Eagle. Perhaps you'd stand a better chance as a ski jumper?

2. 6 and above.

   Bronze. It's a tough competition at this level, and there's no shame at this result. Well, not <i>that</i> much anyway

3. 9 and above.

   Silver. You're a thorough reader, but slightly too slow I fear. Still, you can't be ruled out for 2012

4. 10 and above.

   Gold medal. You could play books quizzes for England, or indeed a country that stood a decent chance of winning