MATT RENDELL survived Hodgkin's Disease and lecturing at British and Latvian universities before entering TV and print journalism. His first book Kings of the Mountains: How Colombia's Cycling Heroes Changed their Nation's History (Aurum Press 2002) was described in The Times as 'meticulous, elegant and sensitive.' His Channel 4 documentary about sport in Colombia and Ecuador, also called Kings of the Mountains, was described in The Observer as 'a gem, telling us more about the essence of sport in under an hour than a season's worth of Premiership matches.'

He has written for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, including British coverage of the Tour de France, and he edited The Tour de France Centennial 1903-2003 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 2003). The National Sporting Club named Matt Rendell 'Best New Sports Writer 2003'.