Five Emmy nominations went to the two-part TV drama. The story begins in 1894, when Baron Pierre de Courbetin (Louis Jourdan) announces his intention to stage the first Olympic games of the Modern Era within two years in Athens, and heads to the US to recruit an athletic team. Despite disinterest, opposition and spotty funding, de Coubertin assembles his team with the help of Princeton professor William Sloane. The thirteen chosen Americans have a pretty bumpy time of it, but most survive to the final Olympic contest: the grueling Marathon. The supporting cast is top-heavy with veterans from both America and England, including Angela Lansbury, Honor Blackman, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. Among the leading players is future NYPD Blue star David Caruso as Irish-American athlete James Connolly. The script, by William Bast, adds a few doses of 1980s-style political correctness; for example, the all-white athletic team is coached in the fine art of hurdle-jumping by a black housemaid. First telecast May 20th and 21st 1986, it was later released on VHS in 1992 by Columbia TriStar Home Video. With a running time of 280-minutes (that's 5 hours!) this 2 tape set can be obtained through Amazon.com in VHS or DVD format.
