Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Stories of the Olympic Games: Gymnastics

Episode 2 of 4

Series exploring the history of the modern Olympics through the stories of athletes, here looking at the never-ending pursuit of technical perfection by gymnasts.

Daring and danger, skill and beauty combine as this series telling the history of the Olympics continues with the story of gymnastics at the modern Games.

It explores a never-ending pursuit of perfection by athletes constantly pushing their sport to greater and greater levels of technical difficulty, both on the floor and up on the high apparatus. Like Olga Korbut, who transformed gymnastics with revolutionary new routines that risked everything in Munich in 1972; and Nadia Comaneci, who picked up the baton and went one further by scoring the first perfect ten out of ten in an Olympics at Montreal in 1976.

Faster, Higher, Stronger is full of dramatic incident as well as great gymnastic elegance and achievement. One of the most inventive Olympic gymnasts, Vera Caslavska, re-lives the protest she made at the Soviet invasion of her country Czechoslovakia during the 1968 Mexico Games, and Japanese athlete Shun Fujimoto recounts the extraordinary story of how he competed with a broken knee to ensure his team won gold.

1 hour

Music Played

  • Marconi Union

    Sleepless

  • Max Richter

    A sudden Manhattan of the mind

  • Ashley Sewell

    All Alone

  • John Williams

    Gone Forever

  • Max Richter

    Arboretum

  • Max Richter

    Vladimir's Blues

  • Marconi Union

    Interiors

  • Marconi Union

    Debris

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Adante from Piano concerto 21 'Elvira Madigan'

  • Einst眉rzende Neubauten

    Wuste

Credits

Role Contributor
Narrator Adrian Lester
Narrator Adrian Lester
Series Producer Alastair Laurence
Series Producer Alastair Laurence
Director Alastair Laurence
Director Alastair Laurence

Broadcasts

The Olympians who went faster, higher and stronger

Take a look at the sports people who pushed the limits of human endeavour.