Looking for an Olympic documentary before Paris Games? Here are the best
Are you ready to go for the gold?
The 2024 Paris Olympics are coming, with opening ceremonies set for Friday (NBC and Peacock, 1:30 p.m. EDT/10:30 a.m. PDT; replay at 7:30 p.m. EDT/PDT). Plenty of "stories" will play out at this year's Games: Athletes who lead double lives as rocket scientists; the return of Simone Biles; and even excrement in Paris' Seine river. But those are only the stories to be told this year. The worldwide sporting event has a long history of them.
In preparation for the 2024 Games, we recommend five documentaries that illuminate the Olympics then and now. From a series in which Biles finally speaks for herself to a deeply impactful history of racism to Russian doping, these five docs will keep you in the glory and the drama as you count down to the torch lighting.
'Simone Biles Rising'
Netflix
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Much has been said by commentators (from experts to the unqualified members of the peanut gallery) about Biles' decision to drop out midway through the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 because of mental health concerns. But it's refreshing to hear from the gymnast herself, often called the "greatest of all time." Biles, now a 27-year-old married woman in a sport dominated by teenagers, candidly discusses Tokyo, her experience as a survivor of sexual abuse from former Team USA doctor Larry Nassar (now serving a decades-long prison sentence for abusing dozens of athletes) and the unique pressures she faces. Ahead of her third Olympics, it's a reminder that Biles is a person first and a symbol of American athletic prowess second. We need to give her the compassion we give ourselves. (Two episodes now streaming; two more, covering her Paris competition, are due later this year.)
Your guide:Where can I watch the Olympics? Everything to know about watching, streaming Paris Games
'Sprint'
Netflix
Call it the prequel to the 2024 games. This six-episode documentary about track and field runners in competitions leading up to Paris has all the good drama of a sports story and sets up characters (these lively athletes really do feel like characters) for battles of good versus evil (or at least up-and-comers versus favorites) on the track. From the colorful and spirited Sha'Carri Richardson to the ambitious and energetic Noah Lyle, you can really get to know these sprinters before they run for their lives (and medals) in the City of Lights. Blink and you'll miss them.
'With Drawn Arms'
Starz, Tubi
Many sports stories are cheeky and cheering, or even lighthearted. But sports is more than what athletes do on the field or the court. This spectacular and moving 2020 documentary is a close examination of one of the most famous and impactful moments in Olympic history: when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in support of the Black Panther movement on the winners podium during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Smith looks back on the moment in the film, a powerful examination of racism then and now.
'Icarus'
Netflix
Sports meets true crime in this intense, and intensely fascinating, 2017 Oscar-winning account of the Russian government's mass-doping scandal, which resulted in the country's banishment from major world sporting events for four years. More like a thriller than a nonfiction story, "Icarus" will keep you glued to the screen with more tension than most of the Olympic sporting events this year.
'The Price of Gold'
ESPN+
Forget "I, Tonya," this ESPN "30 for 30" documentary is the definitive accounting of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident, in which Kerrigan was assaulted in an attack organized and carried out by people in Harding's life. Measured, unbiased and without sensationalism, this 2014 film will make you rethink what you assume about both skaters, but especially Harding. Often heartbreaking, the interviews and archival footage tell a story that you know and one you don't, delving into the psychology of the athletes but also of American culture at large in 1994.
