Athletes

Series

Series Name

London Line

Issue

Long Special

1

Filmed

1976

Length of issue (in feet)

1066

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Athletes

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

COI synopsis: Man has always searched for perfection... but how can he measure the success of his labour? There is no yardstick, except perhaps in the world of athletics. Once every four years the cream of the world’s athletes have an arena in which to test themselves - the Olympics. Places as far apart as Mexico, Munich, Montreal. In every event it gives just one person the knowledge that he is the best in the world. London Line explores the athletes’ world to show a little of what it takes to reach the top - and it’s a world where Africa has been outstanding. We see and hear from men such as John Akii-Bua, Olympic champion and world record holder for the 400 metre hurdles, and his British rival for this event - Britain’s Commonwealth champion Alan Pascoe; long jumpers Roy Mitchell and Alan Lerwill, Commonwealth champion; runners like Mike Boit from Kenya, Tanzania’s Filbert Bayi, and long distance runner Brendan Foster, holder of world records for the three thousand metres and two miles. It’s not just the athletes but coaches too - George Tymms with Alan Pascoe and Malcolm Arnold for John Akii-Bua make their contribution in the 400 metre hurdles and Bruce Tulloh, who with Alex Stewart gave Mike Boit the confidence he now enjoys. The athletes are shown pushing themselves to the limits of their physical strength in the search for gold... the Olympic gold medals that tell them they are the best in the world.

Researcher Comments

Utilises footage from the Central Office of Information, Visnews and the BBC as well as original footage

Keywords

Sport; Competitions; Athletics

Written sources

COI Catalogue Cards [BFI National Archive]
COI Microfilm Roll 43 [BFI National Archive]   Used for synopsis

Credits:

Sponsor

Central Office of Information (COI)

This series is held by:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries:
nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk
For commercial/footage reuse enquiries:
footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

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