Olympics
Thomas H. Green
When we think of the 1972 Olympics in Munich, we do not think of US swimmer Mark Spitz’s record-breaking seven gold medals, or Finland’s Lasse Virén making his extraordinary comeback from a fall in the 10,000 metres to a record-breaking win. No, the 1972 Olympics will always be remembered for the killing of 11 Israeli athletes (and coaches) by Palestine’s Black September organisation. Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich takes this act, portrayed in a gripping opening sequence, as its starting point.Those who wish for a detailed perspective on the events of 5-6 September 1972 are advised Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Making fictional movies about sport is the devil's own job. They generally don't appeal to non fans while those who follow the game in question spend their time mocking the action scenes as actors pretending to be sportsmen and women usually fail to convince - as is the case with the stars of Wimbledon (2004) and Match Point (2005).In Wimbledon, Paul Bettany is a thirtysomething middling British tennis pro who is sliding well past 100 in the world rankings. He gets a wild card for Wimbledon, where he meets fellow player Kirsten Dunst. They fall in love, boff a bit - which enhances his game no Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Rio Ferdinand did four years' ballet training as a child, England manager Graham Taylor sent the national squad to dance classes, while the Royal Ballet once ran an active football team. Ballet and football have long been secret lovers backstage. But they have only been rarely seen out together in public.The tidy formations and rehearsed moves that please in dance theatre aren't compatible with the unpredictable spontaneity of football, and while kings of grace such as Ronaldinho, Zinedine Zidane or Dennis Bergkamp bring tears to the eyes with their individual flair, it's the overall arc of a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
In the original Games featuring Athenians and Spartans and the like, they would of course have done it all in the buff. The sporting costume – the thin end of the wedge that is the singlet - was a tawdry Olympic neologism foisted on the pure ideals of the athletic contest in the first modern Olympiad in 1896. Just what naked wrestling would have looked like is of course something one has to imagine - dreamily or otherwise. Alternatively, of course, you can have another peep at Ken Russell’s Women in Love.The film itself, a hippy-trippy Sixties take on the Lawrentian quest for much more sex Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
"What caused him to be so fast? Is he here for a purpose?" wondered Usain Bolt's father, Wellesley, in a mystical tone. Usain's mother, Jennifer, also seems to detect the workings of a higher power in her son's blindingly rapid progress around the world's running tracks. "Thank you, Lord, for what you have done," she said.It was hardly surprising that this profile of the so-called Lightning Bolt, multiple record-breaker and triple Olympic medallist, oozed with awe and dripped with reverence. Getting a film crew inside the Bolt entourage presumably depends on an understanding, possibly in Read more ...
howard.male
Rather unjustly, this underrated 1976 thriller is best remembered for the dental torture scenes in which Laurence Olivier’s shiny-headed, shiny-spectacled Nazi, Dr Christian Szell, repeatedly asks Dustin Hoffman’s petrified and pain-crazed Levy if it’s safe or not, and Levy has no idea if the answer required is yes or no. But the rest of this movie is a much subtler, more involving affair than is suggested by a scene that is truly painful to watch . As an Olympic event, the marathon is about endurance as much as speed. For poor Levy the whole of John Schlesinger’s film is a test of Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Reason dictates that Britain should win the four archery competitions at the Olympics, although we have accrued only two gold medals (both in 1908), two silvers, and five bronzes in the 14 Olympiads in which the sport has hitherto been included. So why the confidence? It is dictated by the aura of Robin Hood. One only has to turn to the opening verse of the poem Arthur Conan Doyle (himself a Scottish footballer, first-class cricketer, and golfer) included in The White Company, his 1891 novel of the Hundred Years War:What of the bow?The bow was made in England:Of true wood, of yew wood,The Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Faster, higher, stronger - and more graceful. There is a handful of top athletes and sportspeople who are the beautiful people, who have some divine extra dimension to their movement that makes you smile to see them. They're winners, but they're seraphic dancers too, and they make all the other winners look tough and effortful.Grace is something extra, an excess over necessary talent, a luxury bonus, an unfair advantage. Just as the majority of dancers, despite all their skills and perfect training, lack - unfairly - that indefinable something, so in sport certain winners never look schooled Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Stonehenge, the monumental mystery of Britain’s past, decked out like a laundry yard with drying white vests and flowerpots scattered among its gigantic monoliths. It makes a most disconcerting image, and it is the precursive tableau that the public should not miss if they make the trek out to Salisbury Plain tonight or tomorrow for one of the Cultural Olympiad’s stranger installations. Get there before it all starts.For three nights only, the great landmark and treasure of world civilisation becomes the magisterially named Stonehenge Fire Garden, centrepiece of Salisbury Arts Festival, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Apparently it’s the taking part that counts, which would explain why recent weeks have brought unseemly howls of protest and threats of litigation from British athletes who have failed to make it into the Olympic squad. You’d like to sit these people with their adamantine sense of entitlement in front of a couple of this week’s releases. One we know all about. Chariots of Fire has jogged back along the beach and onto cinema screens in time to remind us about all our amateur yesteryears. The ageless story of two British sprinters who defied the Establishment, it finds a remarkably good Read more ...
Ismene Brown
It was one of the better Olympic culture ideas that Wales, Scotland and England should combine in a Dance GB night, with the three “national” dance companies all creating something new. But a risk that had little Wales holding its breath in fear, up against the might of English National Ballet and Scottish Ballet. And who would have expected the 12-strong National Dance Company Wales to emerge as unexpected heroes?Truly this wee troupe stepped up to the plate, nabbing the world-famous Christopher Bruce for their choreographer, and being rewarded with the audience hit of the night of a rather Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
With Euro 2012 about to end and the Olympics looming, we'll be hearing an awful lot of national anthems over the next couple of months. Don't we all agree that the majority of them are inadequate - often being turgid tunes with no reference to the culture of the countries involved? Isn't it about time we had some alternatives? Here are a few suggestions.United KingdomAnthem: God Save the QueenThe obvious alternative for Team GB would be "Jerusalem". Athletes could also sing along to the stirring strains of "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols. Another possibility was suggested by Read more ...