Edited from the 180 hours of coverage ABC Sports devoted to the Los Angeles Summer Games, this 90-minute collection of the XXIIIrd Olympiad’s greatest moments captures the athletes and performances that made this year’s Olympics a crowning achievement in sports. The narrator is Frank Gifford and when you watch the 12 running events you will not see much of anything beyond the final 150 meters on the track. The only two races shown in their entirety are the men’s and women’s 100 meter final. After 47 minutes of coverage of other Olympic events, the running coverage begins with the women’s marathon featuring footage of Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, Ingred Christiansen, Rosa Mota, and Gabrielle Andersen-Schiess. Joaquim Cruz is shown winning the 800 meters over Sebastian Coe. Evelyn Ashford, Alice Brown, and Merlene Ottey-Page bring home the medals in the 100 meters. The women’s 400 meters features Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Chandra Cheeseborough, and Kathryn Cook. In trying to show Brisco-Hooks on the award stand they use the 200 meter winners, including Florence Griffith, although there is no race coverage if this event. Carl Lewis is covered quickly in each of his four gold medal events with other medal winners including: Sam Graddy and Ben Johnson in the 100; Calvin Smith passing him the baton in the short relay; Kirk Baptiste and Thomas Jefferson making a sweep for the United States in the 200 meters and Lewis’ winning long jump. Daley Thompson is shown running 10.4 in the opening event of the decathlon. Edwin Moses obtained his 105th victory by defeating Danny Harris and Harald Schmid in the 400 hurdles. Mary Decker, Zola Budd, Maricica Puic and Wendy Sly were shown in the women’s 3000, although there was no finish line coverage. Steve Cram is shown pulling away from Sebastian Coe in the 1500 meters. And finally the men’s marathon was the last Olympic event featuring Rob de Castella, Toshihiko Seko, Alberto Salazar, Juma Ikangaa, Charles Spedding, John Treacy, and Carlos Lopes, who in his 3rd ever marathon posted an Olympic record of 2:09:21, for the victory.
