b'sky Monday and another day of almost unbearable drama in thefew moments after she crossed the line at the Sydney Olympics competition. to claim the gold medal that the whole nation had been willing Often hearing a song takes you back to a place in time. I listen toher to win. She is sitting on the track in the green body suit that Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts by Bob Dylan and Im takenshe wore for those Games, looking utterly exhausted, both back to a little lawn outside my room at college, sitting there withmentally and physically. We had all wanted her to represent a friend on a lazy summers day, talking about things that seemedsomething more than an athlete. We had wanted her to salve important and vital then, enjoying being young and suddenly filledsome of the wounds in Australian society and that picture shows with the thrill of so much which lay ahead. how the pressure of playing that role had nearly defeated her.Photographs do that more too but more overtly. They guideEven though I know that newspapers are fighting to adapt to the you back to your memories more directly. They show you anchanges in technology that have revolutionised the market in element of what you remember and rush you back there. Thethe last ten years, even though they are searching for a way to vision of Celtic Manor dominated by a rainbow does that vividlyevolve, even though more and more people are reading online for me. It carries me back to one of the best weekends of sport Iand on tablets, I know there will always be a market for the have ever witnessed. written word and that in one form or another, newspapers, like books, will find a way to survive. That rainbow and that course, theyre a trigger for memoriesAnd, looking through the images taken by Marc, thinking back of the deluge that fell upon south Wales that weekend, ofto all the jobs we did together, all the work he has done with the rivers of water that ran down the fairway towards thejournalists such as Matt Dickinson, Simon Barnes and Owen eighteenth green, of seeing the areas behind the ropes turn intoSlot, it underlines the fact that the power of sports photography quagmires, of the publics commitment to watching sport, evenis not diminishing. It is increasing.in such dreadful conditions.But that rainbow in that image symbolises something else, too,Photographs like the ones in this collection are becoming about that weekend and about sport in general. Somehow,more and more powerful and more and more important. The there is always a positivity about Marcs work that hints at sportsworld is moving faster and faster. There is less and less time ability to overcome adversity; a positivity that affirms sportsfor reflection. Pictures freeze the maelstrom. They bring clarity penchant for providing an escape from everyday life; a positivityto the rush. They capture the essence of sports struggle and that makes so many of us gravitate towards it. reveal its triumph in an instant.So, after the deluge at Celtic Manor, after all the gripes aboutSo bring on the best that sport has to offer. And the rainbows the lunacy of staging the Ryder Cup in south Wales in theand the back streets and the football clubs that provide comfort autumn, the rainbow appeared and the gripes gave way to thein times of tragedy and the heroes who never stop striving. You drama of that crisp, clear final day when everything hinged oncan find many of them here, captured in their majesty for all the last match between Graeme McDowell and Hunter Mahantime, or perhaps just until a new generation leaps higher and and, as the ropes disappeared and a huge crowd massed on theruns faster in front of the lens. fringe of the seventeenth green, Europe, against all the odds, prevailed.I have other pictures taken by Marc on my walls at home, ones that didnt make it into this book. Theres one of the indigenous Australian womens 400m champion Cathy Freeman, taken a 11'