First Olympics: Athens 1896

This television miniseries tells the story of the founding of the modern Olympics by focusing on individuals in several countries and their preparations and eventual competition in Athens in 1896. David Ogden Stiers (a familiar face to viewers of M*A*S*H reruns) portrays a Princeton classics professor whose knowledge of the ancient Olympics means he's given the task of recruiting an American team for the 1896 games. The stories of how some athletes have to be convinced to join the team may seem contrived, but they do reinforce the idea of how fragile the concept of reviving the Olympics was at the time. A young David Caruso (years before he'd swagger through the stationhouse of N.Y.P.D. Blue) portrays a cocky Boston Irishman who walks away from a Harvard scholarship to participate in track events. And if Caruso does veer perilously close to doing an extended James Cagney impression, he serves as a sturdy focal point to the American team. Once in Athens, the focus is very much on the American athletes and their surprising success, and there are some interesting and humorous touches in the plot. For instance, the fledgling American team had enlisted a local blacksmith to render an iron discus, thereby giving them an unexpected advantage when presented with the much lighter "official" discus in Athens. Even if the various plots and subplots about the athletes don't always hold up very well, the scenes of competition in Athens do provide an entertaining re-creation of the first modern Olympics. --Robert J. McNamara