The Fall

You forget just how vulnerable, just how bewildered teenager Zola Budd was when she arrived in the UK clutching a gleaming new fast-tracked British passport to compete under our flag in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Vulnerable, bewildered and exploited. Across the Atlantic her hero Mary Decker was trying her best to avoid all the hype that was building around their meeting in the 3000m.

Most will remember the calamitous outcome, but what this brilliantly executed new film does is not just bring the two athletes back together for the first time since that fateful August day but look at the rubble-strewn route they took to get to the starting line.

The filmed reconciliation is a joyful one, but as Budd acknowledges the race’s legacy has lasted a lifetime. “I don’t think either of us had a fair chance of ever achieving what we wanted to do.”