IF the Winter Olympics in Vancouver piqued your interest in snow sports, then a new paperback about Britain s great bobsleigh victory makes a fascinating read. But Olympic Gold Run (�7.99, Pennant Books), by Brian Belton is not the story of Amy Williams

IF the Winter Olympics in Vancouver piqued your interest in snow sports, then a new paperback about Britain's great bobsleigh victory makes a fascinating read.

But Olympic Gold Run (�7.99, Pennant Books), by Brian Belton is not the story of Amy Williams' success in the skeleton bob. It tells the amazing story of Tony Nash and Robin Dixon, who won the two-man bobsleigh gold in the 1964 Olympics in Austria.

This was a time when Olympic athletes really were amateurs, when they paid for their own equipment, and when rivals helped each other out.

In those days, the bobsleigh was a sport for wealthy daredevils. Many of the competitors also raced cars, motorbikes and speedboats.

Nash and Dixon went to Harrow and Eton public schools. Nash's family owned a brewery and an engineering company, Dixon's father was Lord Glentoran - a title Dixon now holds.

Dixon was introduced to bobsleighing by his distant cousin and old school friend Lord Lucan, who disappeared in 1974 after the murder of his children's nanny and has never been seen since.

He soon teamed up with Nash and they won Olympic gold in a race which also produced one of the greatest stories of sportsmanship ever - when race favourite and bob legend Eugenio Monti took a crucial bolt off his own machine to lend to the British pair so they could complete the race.

The book is not just the story of Nash and Dixon (the latter now an active politician), but also of another era and the men they raced against.

- LINDSAY JONES