We watched the first season of Sprint, a documentary series from the largest streaming platform about the fastest people in the world, the star athletes of short distances, and we fell in love with our capital. Netflix can only satisfy millions with these six episodes “To Paris Eastern Europe“We'll tell you why.
Even the heat of Sorócsar shines even more beautifully when Netflix documentarians present it to hundreds of millions of people, moreover, as snapshots of the stories and ideas of the history of the famous sport that give faith and strength to the ordinary person. Netflix has filmed a film about Hungary, and more specifically the Hungarian capital, which even manages to lighten the huge overhead costs of the World Athletics Championships a little.
The first season of the six-part series Sprint, released a few days ago, revolves primarily around Budapest, showing how the world's sprinting stars, Olympic and world champions, prepare for one of the biggest events of their lives, the 2023 World Championships in Athletics. Then how they win or lose in the Hungarian capital.
Do you have a faster one?
Of course, streaming trends in recent years have clearly shown that there is almost nothing more motivating than the work and struggle of elite athletes, and while the popularity of many sports and fan spending has skyrocketed with Netflix series, the stories of athletes fighting one after another to be called the fastest people in the world.
If you're not a running fan – like me – you're almost amazed by the runners' fitness and training drive. Netflix makes the breathtaking sequences even more exciting with its usual documentary style, which carries human frailty and a powerful emotional charge.
The series is produced by Paul Martin, James Jay Rees and Warren Smith at Box to Box Films – in association with the Olympic Channel. The documentary makers – not only with a ruthless Netflix sports budget in their pockets – had the background to tackle the subject in a unique and high-quality way, but they filmed in essentially all the locations and presented human destinies that we had little information about until now. The team is also the creators of the golf documentary series Full Swing, Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Hungarian title: Hajsza a survúszért) and Break Point (Relentless Tennis), which is also streaming on Netflix, so they had no shortage of experience. Sprint, on the other hand, is a little different.
Series Shakari Richardson, Noah Lyles, Sherica Jackson, Garnell Hughesthe icon Shelly Ann Fraser-Prycetakes you into the daily life, family background, training, and those sprints of 10-20 seconds that even the most ardent track and field fans can only scratch the surface of. Delving into the relationships, rivalries, experiences, successes and failures behind the 100m and 200m World Championships, the series offers a unique look into the world of sprinting, where every fraction of a second counts.
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The question that is supposed to dominate the daily lives of these athletes, and therefore also dominates the images of the series, is heard at one point, when the coach whispers in the ear of the competitor who is trying to reach the final – he asks him not to say the answer but to show it – he discovers: there is faster than you? (We will not spoil the result).
protagonist's energies
All this is “commented” on in front of the cameras by legends like Usain Bolt, Allyson Felix or Michael Johnson, who have in their pockets a total of 73 Olympic and World Championship medals in athletics.
“It takes a special ability, both physical and mental, to succeed in a world where your fate can be decided in just 10 seconds.”
“The team has actually pledged that the series will not focus on the finals, or just tenths of a second, but on what lies behind the runner’s character: the years, sometimes decades, of preparation, the commitment to the sport and the team that supports the elite athletes, the sport is humility, and above all faith and passion, which drives the speed of these runners beyond physical performance,” Lord Sebastian Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, told Netflix.
“If you don't have the energy of a champion, athletics is not for you.”
– Summarizes Noah Lyles All that can be considered the main message of the series.
Paris Eastern Europe
There is something about Sprint that keeps you awake longer so you can push through the 40 minutes six times in one night between two workdays. The series is far from content to focus solely on the sports stars and what happened on the field. The stake itself, Budapest, can be seen as a piece of the hardest thoughts and statements that reveal the strongest sportsmanship.
What's more, in photos, drone shots, and from angles that, in the case of major world cities, depend on advertising or photo campaigns, which must be paid for at peak times by international channels.
The only surprising thing about all this is that the Hungarian capital, once called the “Paris of Eastern Europe” in the series, is the main venue for this sport in 2023, and the usual Netflix promotional timing suits not us Hungarians, but for us. French Paris, that is, the Olympic Games this year are talking. However, our capital has become a symbol of how the roads of Budapest, which until now were considered exclusive only in the interior, lead these athletes all the way to the Olympic podium.
Cover photo: Winner Noah Lyles of the United States after the men's 200m flat final at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Budapest on August 25, 2023 at the National Sports Centre in Budapest. Photo: MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák
