In the changing world of audiovisual entertainment, the streaming platform is gaining more and more followers and those interested in being part of the new times. In fact, in case there were still skeptics, the success of The Redeem Team, a documentary presented by Netflix about the U.S. basketball team that won the gold medal in Beijing 2008, was the basis for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the international platform Netflix to encourage them to partner again for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. On this occasion, 3 documentaries will be presented with the protagonism of several gems of the crown of international sport: men’s basketball, the star sprinters of world athletics and, as an individual expression, the star gymnast Simone Biles.
Beyond the IOC’s corporate presence, the project has the full backing of the international athletics federations –World Athletics-, basketball –FIBA– and gymnastics –FIG-. This is one of the best ways to bring the work behind a sporting success closer to the spectator. What is not seen, everything that is not the tip of the iceberg and that, really, is what sport means: sacrifice, training, perseverance. Values that do not shine as brightly as they should for future generations.
RISING: LIVING THROUGH BILES’ TORTURE
Fans who shared Biles’ pain when she retired in Tokyo 2020 +1, will have the opportunity to know, in 4 parts, all the vicissitudes lived by the Rio 2016 champion after recovering mentally and returning to competitive activity. Every moment of the athlete’s preparation and, above all, the viewer’s awareness of the gigantic effort of months and years, which translates into the few seconds of a performance or the brief minutes of a routine, will be seen through Rising, the name chosen for the documentary. The first episodes, scheduled to premiere at the end of July, will focus on the gymnast’s greatest struggle to overcome the resistance of her own mind, a battle from which she did not fare well in Tokyo, as well as the tortuous road of recovery until her expected reappearance on the occasion of the 2023 World Championships. The final chapters will show her and her U.S. teammates in Olympic mode in the French capital.
SPRINT, THE DAY-TO-DAY LIFE OF THE FASTEST HUMAN BEINGS
Sprint will be the name of the installment dedicated to the fastest humans on the planet, especially outside of competitive activity. It focuses on figures who will be the main protagonists of the upcoming Olympic Games and will be broadcasted once the competitions on the Parisian athletic track are over. We will be able to see, for example, the highs and lows of Shericka Jackson, the Jamaican world champion in Bucharest and who this month shone again in Rabat; to the American Noah Lyles, who is nothing less than Usain Bolt’s own candidate to beat his marks and who does not hesitate to state that, regarding the 100m sprint: “I’m to run them in 9.6 seconds”; to Sha’Carri Richardson, known as “the fastest girl in Texas”, who wants her revenge after the hard blow suffered when she was dropped from the Tokyo games after testing positive for cannabis use.
All the way to the highest stage of world sport, which will be reflected in this production that joined Box To Box Films and Olympic Channel to reach our screens. Each installment will reflect the daily effort, discipline and sweat dedicated to the dispute to improve thousandth by thousandth, the elusive mark they want to achieve. Or “a captivating look into the lives of Olympic athletes, providing inspiring stories and perspectives,” as IOC executive Jérome Parmentier put it.
THE PECULIARITIES OF A TEAM SPORT
The third documentary will show the road to the Games for several men’s basketball candidate teams. Olympic Men’s Basketball will reflect the not always easy relationship of team sports, having to reconcile teams composed of figures, desires and egos: how, based on individualities, to build a whole that will take them to the top in the appointment of the five rings. A sort of ‘personal brand’ to the 8 teams that will be present in the baskets of the city of light. From reigning world champions Germany to the United States, which is aiming to repeat its Tokyo gold medal, passing through the always powerful Serbia and France, to the representative of South Sudan, the youngest country in the world.
It will be a journey into the heart of gymnastics, athletics and basketball. A sample of high performance beyond the triumphs and moments of glory. There will also be the “others”, those outside the camera, those who show us the hard pilgrimage of mortals to become the gods and goddesses that the world worships in the Olympus of the games every four years.
