After months of anticipation, the full first series of SPRINT hits screens around the globe today (2 July) as the six-part docuseries officially launches worldwide on Netflix.
Created by the team behind Drive to Survive, SPRINT follows the lives of top athletes such as Sha’Carri Richardson, Noah Lyles, Marcell Jacobs and Shericka Jackson as they navigate the rollercoaster ride of being among the fastest sprinters of all time. It shines a spotlight on their lives – on and off the track – as never seen before.
Delving deep into the relationships, rivalries, trials and tribulations behind the race to become a global champion in the 100m and 200m, the series provides unique insight into the exhilarating realm of sprinting, where every millisecond counts.
The series takes viewers across the world on the sport’s premier one-day meeting circuit – the Wanda Diamond League – as athletes battle it out towards the pinnacle of the 2023 season: the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23.
Showing an unseen side of their remarkable routes to Budapest, and as athletes now prepare for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the series showcases:
- Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican sprint great who just last weekend secured her spot for her fifth Olympic Games
- Zharnel Hughes, the British record-holder guided by Usain Bolt’s former coach Glen Mills
- Shericka Jackson, the second-fastest women’s 200m sprinter in history who recently retained her Jamaican 100m and 200m titles
- Marcell Jacobs, the Italian record-holder on the hunt for a second consecutive Olympic 100m crown
- Fred Kerley, the 2022 world 100m champion who is looking to go one better than his Tokyo Olympic silver in Paris
- Noah Lyles, the five-time world champion who completed a 100m and 200m double at the recent US Olympic Team Trials
- Sha’Carri Richardson, the world 100m champion who stormed to the US title in Eugene in a world-leading time
- Gabby Thomas, the recent US 200m title winner and fastest woman in the discipline so far this year
- Elaine Thompson-Herah, Jamaica’s five-time Olympic gold medallist
Offering unique insight into the exclusive world of international-level sprinting are athletics legends Usain Bolt, Allyson Felix, Ato Boldon and Michael Johnson, who between them have a total of 73 Olympic and World Athletics Championships medals.
© Netflix
The six episodes are:
- Heir to the Throne
- Queens
- Belonging
- Trials & Tribulations
- The Gold Standard
- The Double is Alive
Many of the stars of SPRINT have already made their marks this season and the new series shows how they got to this stage. Fresh from national championships action and with sights now set on the Paris Games, the story continues over the next few weeks as athletes aim to state their case ahead of their battle for glory in the No.1 Olympic sport. Against the odds. Against uncertainty. Against the world.
Lyles has already been announced for the 200m at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco on 12 July and the 100m at the meeting in London eight days later. Some of the world’s biggest names will also clash in the women’s 100m in Monaco and women’s 200m in London before athletics at the Olympic Games kicks off on 1 August.
“It takes a different mindset to be a track athlete,” asserts Lyles. “If you don’t have main character energy, track and field ain’t for you.”
The only question that remains is: “who wants it more?” Find out on SPRINT.
Credit: World Athletics
