King of the Road: From Bergen-Belsen to the Olympic Games

"From triumph to tragedy this personal first-hand look into the past is a good reminder as we look forward into the future and where we go now." -- Mark Spitz, winner of 7 gold medals (swimming) at the Munich Olympic Games, the highest ever won at a single Olympic game
"One senses the anguish and the excitement, the sheer nerve and determination of a man who took on the Israeli athletic establishment and did it all, his way. He manifests the courage to push beyond his own limits and the reader will experience the anguish and the exuberance of the life that Ladany has led. He earned my admiration, my respect and my gratitude. He will earn yours as well." -- Michael Berenbaum, Executive Editor, Encyclopaedia Judaica
"Packed with insider info on the life of a long-distance athlete and interesting anecdotes from the author s life, Shaul Ladany s King of the Road will appeal to anyone who has ever reached for a goal in life and pushed to be the best. This book will inspire you!" --Tal Brody, former Captain, Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team; first sportsman to receive the Israel Prize
"Ladany, 72, is the ultimate survivor. Not just of Munich, where he managed to escape the wrath of terrorists during the attack in the Olympic village. Ladany also spent months in a Nazi concentration camp (Bergen-Belsen), had recurring bouts with skin cancer and lymphoma, and endured enough legal and administrative skirmishes to wear down most mortals. On July 4, his charter flight to Berlin lost one of its two engines 90 minutes into the air, turned back and made a successful emergency landing in Tel Aviv. But then, Ladany has always been beyond us. He speaks nine languages and is a professor of industrial engineering with 8 patents, 110 scientific papers, 13 books and more up my sleeve." -- New York Times
"He survived the Holocaust and then escaped the Munich Massacre. Today, at the age of 72, he is an athletics phenomenon... Given the extraordinary course of his life, it would be fair to call him the great survivor the ultimate survivor even... The septuagenarian professor and race walker has survived not one but two of the great global horrors of the past 100 years. As an eight-year-old, back in 1944, he was interned in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was one of the few of Yugoslavia's 70,000 Jews to survive the Holocaust. As a 36-year-old, in 1972, he was a member of the Israeli team who were attacked by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics. He was one of six male athletes who managed to escape from the Black September group." -- The Independent