Netflix Scores With It's Latest Sports Documentary Series
SPRINT (2024)
A Quick TV Review
Well, here's a 'quick review'...I loved SPRINT, Netflix's latest sports-focused documentary series premiering this week.
A Quick TV Review
Well, here's a 'quick review'...I loved SPRINT, Netflix's latest sports-focused documentary series premiering this week.
As an ardent track & field fan and an Olympic sports athlete fan, what's not to love. Track gets the Netflix sports series treatment, and right on schedule with the Paris 2024 Summer Games approaching in a few weeks.
Sure, passionate track aficionados may quibble that there isn't anything particularly new presented in SPRINT...similar to fans' concerns about Netflix's Break Point on tennis. But what we do get is Netflix's good-looking production and some behind-the-scenes access to personalities and process.
Across six episodes, SPRINT (subtitled "The World's Fastest Humans") focuses on Team USA sprint stars Noah Lyles and Sha'Carri Richardson as they target success at the 2023 Word Athletics Championships in Budapest, with Gabby Thomas, Great Britain's Zharnel Hughes, Italian Marcell Jacobs, and Jamaicans Shericka Jackson, Elaine Tompson-Herah, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce getting star turns as well.
Along the way, track legends Michael Johnson, Allyson Felix, Usain Bolt, and Ato Boldon are used liberally for expert commentary, while the long list of fellow current stars making appearances includes Fred Kerley, Twanisha Terry, Paul Chelimo, Wayde van Niekirk, Ferdinand Omanyala, and Dina Asher-Smith. Triple Olympian Dennis Mitchell gets screen time as Richardson's current coach, and we get rare States-side glimpses of Barcelona 1992 champion Linford Christie and the vaunted Jamaican coaches Paul and Stephen Francis.
Yes, we already know that Lyles and Richardson have outsized personalities. But even those of us who followed the road to the Budapest Worlds and know the results can appreciate seeing new insights and footage. Lyles' emotion on the Budapest podium, Hughes relaxing with a flight simulator, Jacobs' acknowledging awkwardness with new-found fame, the Jamaican sprint queens' training camp drama, Christie revealing his competitive use of rival Carl Lewis' image, and the frequent looks inside the entrance tunnels and on the warm-up tracks are all elements that bring a fresh look that we rarely see in the United States with track & field's airtime getting squeezed tighter and tighter.
I will admit to two criticisms: For one, SPRINT ends with its stars wrapping up their individual races in Budapest; Richardson charmingly, specifically noting that the road to Paris 2024 has begun ("Y'all got Olympics next year? Oh no...I gotta get my training on."), leaving a glaring miss that both Lyles and Richardson also won golds in the sprint relays - as well all know were key story lines from the competition.
And, secondly, SPRINT just whets the appetite for more. I want a beautifully-filmed documentary on Armand Duplantis and the pole vault, the long hurdlers, the 1500-meter runners, the colorful Yulimar Rojas, on and on. Us fans are starved for more!
In the meantime, track fans can't go wrong tuning into SPRINT for a quick fix to help set the stage for more showdowns in Paris.
p.s. Who agrees with me that Lyles' mom Keisha is the breakout star from Sprint? And I nominate the Jamaican Patois as a close second...
Sure, passionate track aficionados may quibble that there isn't anything particularly new presented in SPRINT...similar to fans' concerns about Netflix's Break Point on tennis. But what we do get is Netflix's good-looking production and some behind-the-scenes access to personalities and process.
Across six episodes, SPRINT (subtitled "The World's Fastest Humans") focuses on Team USA sprint stars Noah Lyles and Sha'Carri Richardson as they target success at the 2023 Word Athletics Championships in Budapest, with Gabby Thomas, Great Britain's Zharnel Hughes, Italian Marcell Jacobs, and Jamaicans Shericka Jackson, Elaine Tompson-Herah, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce getting star turns as well.
Along the way, track legends Michael Johnson, Allyson Felix, Usain Bolt, and Ato Boldon are used liberally for expert commentary, while the long list of fellow current stars making appearances includes Fred Kerley, Twanisha Terry, Paul Chelimo, Wayde van Niekirk, Ferdinand Omanyala, and Dina Asher-Smith. Triple Olympian Dennis Mitchell gets screen time as Richardson's current coach, and we get rare States-side glimpses of Barcelona 1992 champion Linford Christie and the vaunted Jamaican coaches Paul and Stephen Francis.
Yes, we already know that Lyles and Richardson have outsized personalities. But even those of us who followed the road to the Budapest Worlds and know the results can appreciate seeing new insights and footage. Lyles' emotion on the Budapest podium, Hughes relaxing with a flight simulator, Jacobs' acknowledging awkwardness with new-found fame, the Jamaican sprint queens' training camp drama, Christie revealing his competitive use of rival Carl Lewis' image, and the frequent looks inside the entrance tunnels and on the warm-up tracks are all elements that bring a fresh look that we rarely see in the United States with track & field's airtime getting squeezed tighter and tighter.
I will admit to two criticisms: For one, SPRINT ends with its stars wrapping up their individual races in Budapest; Richardson charmingly, specifically noting that the road to Paris 2024 has begun ("Y'all got Olympics next year? Oh no...I gotta get my training on."), leaving a glaring miss that both Lyles and Richardson also won golds in the sprint relays - as well all know were key story lines from the competition.
And, secondly, SPRINT just whets the appetite for more. I want a beautifully-filmed documentary on Armand Duplantis and the pole vault, the long hurdlers, the 1500-meter runners, the colorful Yulimar Rojas, on and on. Us fans are starved for more!
In the meantime, track fans can't go wrong tuning into SPRINT for a quick fix to help set the stage for more showdowns in Paris.
p.s. Who agrees with me that Lyles' mom Keisha is the breakout star from Sprint? And I nominate the Jamaican Patois as a close second...
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