Gymnastics: Simone Biles Rising
Athletes are humans. Sure, they are sometimes naturally gifted or talented than common people but they are humans. Simone Biles, one of the most decorated gymnasts in the world, faced with emotional trauma withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics in the middle of the Games to focus on her mental health. Simone Biles Rising, the 2024 documentary takes viewers behind the scenes right from her journey to Tokyo in 2021 and speaks with Biles herself and the people who helped her get back to the Olympics in Paris 2024. What makes this a good watch is the access it gives to the viewers to experience the moments of triumph and helplessness.
Available on: Netflix
Archery: Ladies First
Deepika Kumari has been synonymous with Indian women’s archery for over a decade. Coming from rural areas in Jharkhand, she rose to prominence purely on her talent and has represented India in four Olympics. The documentary released on International Women’s Day in 2018 tracks the archer’s journey from her village of Ratu to becoming the world no.1 archer. It is a survival story of an athlete who chose to stick by her bow and arrow to take India closer to its first medal in the Olympics.
Available on: Netflix
Basketball: Queen of Basketball
Queen of Basketball is a story of a forgotten pioneer of women’s basketball by the name of Lusia “Lucy” Harris Stewart. Born in rural Mississippi, Lucy had a phenomenal college basketball career before scoring the first basket in women’s Olympic history in the 1976 Montreal Games. She also made history when she became the first woman to be drafted by the NBA team. Coming from the executive producers Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry, this Ben Proudfoot-directed documentary has also won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in March 2022.
Available on: YouTube
Rowing: Gold Fever
They might be on your screen for a few minutes once every four years but athletes put in blood, sweat, and tears to first make it to the Games and then achieve their athletic peak in the Olympics. What goes behind the scenes is hardly ever accessible to the public. However, this BBC documentary from 2000 takes us on that journey that follows Steve Redgrave and his British rowing coxless four teammates Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, and James Cracknell in the years leading up to the Sydney Olympics, where Redgrave was looking to win his fifth consecutive gold medal.
Available on: YouTube
BMX Cycling: Shanpes in the City
What is the brand that you associate the most with adventure sports? Red Bull, right? Apart from being the sponsors of many adrenaline-pumping sports. Red Bull is also a home of well-made documentaries depicting the ideas and identities of the people behind it. One such documentary, based on BMX riding which has been part of the Olympics since 2008, is called Shapes in the City. It captures BMX rider Murray Loubser and his friend Wayne Ritche riding with the backdrop of architecture and the geometric patterns of Cape Town, South Africa.
Available on: Redbull.com
Sports Biz: Athletic Interest
SPORTS is a big business. Right from brand endorsements by athletes to the equipment they use to get that advantage at the biggest stage, money is involved. To make sense of how it works with big brands, especially during big marketing opportunities like the Olympics, check out the YouTube channel Athletic Interest. Their recent video talks about a controversy regarding the Nike Vaporfly shoe, which was so good that it prompted a rule change by World Athletics, the international governing body for the sport of athletics.
Available on: YouTube
Rugby 7s: Sevens From Heaven
Fiji, a small island nation, did not participate in the Olympics till the 1956 Melbourne Games. The country could not bag any medals till the Rio 2016 Games. And the country’s first-ever medal was in Rugby 7s when they defeated Great Britain to win the Gold. The documentary short made on the Fijian men’s Rugby 7s team is called Sevens From Heaven, which depicts their journey from the 2015 World Rugby Sevens Series 2015-16 and then went on to win the Gold. This team went on to defend their gold in the Tokyo Olympics as well.
Available on: YouTube
Football: Next Goal Wins
In 2001, American Samoa lost 31-0 to Australia, the worst loss in international football history. The players and support staff who were part of that squad were still haunted by the memories of that fixture. Next Goal Wins is a story of how Dutch-American Football coach Thomas Rongen took over the team ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification round to help turn around the fate of this team. It is a reflection of what a love for the sport can achieve as American Samoa kept on playing Football despite continuously facing failures.
Available on: Apple TV
Cycling: A Sunday in Hell
During the Paris Olympics, Remco Evenepoel’s photo finish to the men’s road race gold medal grabbed the headlines all over the world. But France is famous for another road race, which is not the Tour de France, called the Paris–Roubaix race, also known as the Queen of the Classics. The hook about this event is that almost 53 km of the path of this race is covered in cobbles, which makes it even harder to conquer as these areas witness many slip-offs, and riders often get covered in mud. The 1977 documentary A Sunday in Hell talks about the 1976 edition of the race from the perspective of participants, organisers, and spectators.
Available on: YouTube
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