Is this the great­est sport­ing dra­ma ever told?

No British film is more close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Olympics than Char­i­ots of Fire. With its opti­mistic por­tray­al of how the glob­al sport­ing event can be a vehi­cle to over­come prej­u­dice and spread moral mes­sages, and as a cel­e­bra­tion of the glo­ry of com­pet­ing – evoked so mem­o­rably through Van­ge­lis’ famous score – the award-win­ning 1981 film extols the ide­al­is­tic val­ues of the Games. It was hon­oured by none oth­er than Mr Bean in one of the stand­out seg­ments of Dan­ny Boyle’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny four years ago in Lon­don, and watch­ing the Olympics today we’re con­stant­ly remind­ed, via slow-motion instant replays, of the icon­ic scene where a group of ath­letes runs along a beach.

But 19 years ear­li­er anoth­er clas­sic British film with much more provoca­tive ideas about what com­pet­i­tive run­ning can achieve was released. The Lone­li­ness of the Long Dis­tance Run­ner tells the sto­ry of young, rebel­lious work­ing class Col­in Smith (an ear­ly role for the great Tom Courte­nay), a tal­ent­ed ath­lete who uses his speed to evade police cap­ture when engag­ing in pet­ty crime, but nonethe­less winds up in Rux­ton Tow­ers juve­nile deten­tion cen­tre after being caught rob­bing a bakery.

“Running’s always been a big thing in our fam­i­ly,” he informs us via voiceover, ​“espe­cial­ly run­ning away from the police.” His style of run­ning reflects this – it’s raw, untrained, all ungain­ly limbs flail­ing all over the place, a world away from the grace of the Cam­bridge-edu­cat­ed run­ners in Char­i­ots of Fire. But when the Gov­er­nor of Rux­ton (Michael Red­grave) recog­nis­es his abil­i­ty and choos­es him as the com­peti­tor to take on the local schools in a cross coun­try race, for Col­in run­ning becomes a poten­tial force for reha­bil­i­ta­tion and a way out of the cycle of pover­ty. All he must do is curb his non-con­formist instincts and sub­mit to the author­i­ty and guid­ance of the Gov­er­nor and his institution.

That’s just what Col­in does, and come the day of the race all the train­ing and focus has put in appears to pay off as he surges into the lead. As the fin­ish line approach­es, direc­tor Tony Richard­son con­structs the scene with all the tropes of a feel-good sports dra­ma like Char­i­ots of Fire. Close-ups of Colin’s ago­nised face as he emp­ties him­self of all his efforts are inter­spersed with shots of large cheer­ing crowds await­ing his arrival; the cam­era adopts their points of view as he is spot­ted on the hori­zon arriv­ing alone ahead of all his rivals, while an excit­ed com­men­ta­tor is heard antic­i­pat­ing his vic­to­ry. The edit­ing becomes more and more excitable as the cam­era cuts rapid­ly from Col­in to the spec­ta­tors watch­ing to brief flash­backs to key moments from his past, as his moment of reck­on­ing nears.

But then some­thing unex­pect­ed hap­pens. Hav­ing slowed down on the approach to the fin­ish line appar­ent­ly through exhaus­tion, Col­in comes to a com­plete stand­still. The edit­ing becomes yet more fren­zied in the con­fu­sion, until it rests on a close-up of the Gov­er­nor, whose expres­sion reg­is­ters the dawn­ing real­i­sa­tion of what’s hap­pened. When the film then cuts to a close-up of Col­in, we imme­di­ate­ly under­stand – his smirk­ing, tri­umphant glare direct­ed at the Gov­er­nor as he stands hands on hips while his oppo­nent catch­es and pass­es him make it clear that he has opt­ed to throw the race, once more defy­ing author­i­ty and refus­ing to sub­mit to his superior’s will even at the cost of per­son­al glory.

It’s a stun­ning moment, and one which bril­liant­ly cap­tures the spir­it of the British New Wave and Angry Young Men move­ments of which The Lone­li­ness of the Long Dis­tance Run­ner is a prime exam­ple. Their inten­tion was to hon­est­ly address real work­ing-class con­cerns, via social real­ism and cin­e­mat­ic exper­i­men­tal­ism, and not to offer sim­ple, crowd-pleas­ing end­ings. Col­in under­stands that if he were to win this race, the vic­to­ry would not belong to him but rather to them – the very author­i­ties and rul­ing class­es he has resent­ed and com­bat­ted his whole life.

Unlike Char­i­ots of Fire, in which the two pro­tag­o­nists enjoy dra­mat­ic cathar­sis by both win­ning gold medals, Colin’s vic­to­ry is his refusal to com­pete on some­one else’s terms. Giv­en the con­text of the Rio Olympics, which has been blight­ed by dop­ing con­tro­ver­sies, cor­rup­tion from the IOC gov­ern­ing body and protests from cit­i­zens left behind by new invest­ments, the mes­sage of The Lone­li­ness of the Long Dis­tance feels pre­scient. Amid the furore of that thrilling final scene, one voice is ris­es above the clam­our: ​“I can imag­ine no greater hon­our than rep­re­sent­ing your coun­try at the Olympics.” Col­in would sure­ly disagree.