A unique profile charting the life and career of 2012 Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha is to be broadcast by BBC Four on the eve of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
100 Seconds to Beat the World: The David Rudisha Story profiles the life of the Kenyan athlete, considered by many within the greatest 800m runner the world has ever seem, as well as his highly unusual coach, the Irish Catholic missionary Brother Colm O’Connell.
Shot over ten years by Jim de Zoete and Ed Sunderland, the film begins in 2005 when the film makers first meet David as a shy 16-year-old arriving at a training camp with nothing but a dream of emulating his father’s 1968 Olympic silver medal.
The camp is run by the unlikeliest of coaches, missionary and amateur athletics trainer Brother Colm, who quickly spots Rudisha’s astonishing talents among many other aspiring athletes that he coached.
Together, they embark on a journey through injury, disappointment and terror when violence sweeps through the country in the aftermath of the 2008 election, all the way to the 2012 Olympics in London and the greatest 800m race the world has ever seen.
Rudisha led the men’s 800m final from the front and smashed his own world record, becoming the first man ever to run under one minute and 41 seconds.
In the words of London 2012 chairman and fellow middle-distance runner Lord Sebastian Coe, “Bolt was good, Rudisha was magnificent”.
But their Olympic and world-beating glory was not straightforward, with David having been injured before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and was knocked out of the World Championships a year later.
Both Rudisha and O’Connell also lost close friends in Kenya’s post-election riots and the film shows how much they suffered in the face of such adversity, only to rise just a few years later by claiming the most sought-after accolade for any athlete – an Olympic gold medal.
With unprecedented access and featuring interviews with Lord Coe himself and BBC athletics commentator Steve Cram, the documentary is an epic, magical and uplifting tale that reaches far beyond sport.
100 Seconds to Beat the World: The David Rudisha Story airs on BBC Four and BBC Four HD on Tuesday, July 22, at 10.00pm and will be available to watch on-demand via BBC iPlayer for up to seven days after transmission.
The documentary forms part of BBC Sport’s build-up to its comprehensive coverage of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, which begins on Wednesday, July 23, with the opening ceremony at Celtic Park and runs through to August 3.
CLICK HERE to read more about the documentary from producer Jim de Zoete’s (via Spectator).
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Tuesday 22nd July
100 Seconds to Beat the World: The David Rudisha Story
10.00pm-11.00pm BBC Four
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