DAVID WALLECHINSKY was introduced to the Olympics as a child by his father, Irving Wallace, who, as a young man, had collaborated on magazine articles with the great U.S. Olympian Jim Thorpe. Wallechinsky attended the Olympics for the first time in Rome in 1960.

In 1983 he published the first edition of his The Complete Book of the Olympics, a compendium of statistics and stories that became the standard reference book on the subject and a favorite of journalists.

In 1991 Wallechinsky was one of the founding members of the International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH). He served eight years as treasurer of ISOH and eight years as vice-president, before being elected president in 2012.

Wallechinsky has also worked as a radio and/or television commentator at every Olympics, Summer and Winter, since 1988.

For more information about Wallechinsky, including about his non-Olympic achievements, see http://www.allgov.com/david-wallechinsky.

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