Personal Best

With 2012 being the year of the London Olympics, it was inevitably going to be a good year to release films and documentaries about sporting endeavour, and this thoughtful portrait joins Town of Runners and The Athlete on the podium. Filmed over four years, it follows the fortunes of a quartet of British sprinters as they train, prepare for and dream of Olympic glory. Sam Blair's film (expanding on his 2008 short film Sprinters) is not about superstars, though, but dedicated, hardworking athletes like 200m runner James Ellington, who put himself up on eBay in order to gain sponsorship, and Jeanette Kwakye, an Olympic 100m finalist in Beijing in 2008 (no mean feat for a British female sprinter), who's determined to get back on track after years of debilitating injury. Their trials and tribulations (along with hurdler Richard Alleyne and teenager Omardo Anson) are absorbing to follow, particularly for avid track and field fans, but this may be too unspectacular and intimate for those who like their sport adrenalised and loud.