Original subtitles

OZEROV: I'm interested in that moment before the contest begins.

It's then that the athlete realizes that he is alone out there,

without friends, trainers or teammates.

The tension of waiting, it is most interesting.

NARRATOR: An enormous honeycomb houses athletes from 122 nations

as nearly 8,000 champions gather to compete for 195 gold medals.

Some nations bring teams who can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Others fill three jumbo jetliners.

There are contestants in the first flush of their teens.

Others are veterans of Tokyo and Mexico City.

All are bound by a common fraternity -

They carry the flags of hope.

80,000 people crammed beneath the surrealistic canopy of Munich Stadium,

eyewitnesses expecting only the glitter of individual triumphs,

unprepared for the shadow of tragedy.

Beyond the stadium and the thousands clustered on the hill,

untold millions also wait.

Their eyes - the lenses of the massed cameras

stationed in the pits.

Facing the ultimate test,

each in his own way seeks an extra strength,

a private grace.

Now is the longest moment,

the moment before action brings release,

the moment before the beginning.

ZETTERLING: I chose weight lifting because I knew nothing about it.

And I suppose one thing that really fascinated me

was that these men work in almost total isolation

and that they are obsessed.

They don't seem to have any life apart from lifting.

I am not interested in sports,

but I am interested in obsessions.

MAN (onPA): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the weight lifting competition,

the flyweight entry, group A.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce the competitors

in the flyweight class, group A.

MAN (on PA): The furniture in the Olympic Village

has been selected with the advice of the armed forces

of the Federal Republic of Germany

and will be used in barracks after the games.

50,000 mattresses, 269,000 feet of curtain rod

and half a million curtain rings

have all been lent by the armed forces.

MAN (onPA): The athletes' diet was planned with the help of sports doctors

to be healthy and well-balanced.

It was calculated, for example,

that the following quantities would be required

by the 12,000 athletes during the two weeks of the games -

1.1 million eggs,

1,350 kilos of porridge,

120,000 rolls -

600,000 pieces of toast,

140,000 liters of orange juice,

27,000 kilos of veal,

6,400 kilos of carved liver,

48,000 kilos of beef,

17,000 kilos of boiled ham.

Technology will assist everyone.

The athletes will have optimal conditions.

And three large computers

will be connected with a data-transmission network.

Together, these computers have around 500 million facts in their memory.

MAN (onPA): The games of the 20th Olympiad

will cost approximately 1,972 million marks.

That is just over ￡257 million.

WEIGHT LIFTER: No. Two-and-a... (panting)

MAN: Two-and-a-half? Two and a half.

MAN (shouts): Ja!

Up!

Come on. Come on, Perdue!

MAN: Don't talk to him.

MAN (shouts): Come on, Terry!

- MAN: Terry, come here. - MAN #2: Come on.

Come on, come on, come on.

Terry!

Up!

- What are you doing? - Stay here. Stay here.

- What's he doing? - Come back.

Come back. Shake hands. Shake hands.

MAN: Hold it. Hold it! High, high, high!

Thank you.

MAN: I don't believe what's going on.

PFLEGHAR: At the first Olympic Games,

women were not allowed to be present, even as spectators.

But here in Munich we had the greatest number of women competitors

in the history of the games.

I wanted to acknowledge their presence and their contributions.

WOMAN (on PA): In the name of all competitors, I promise...

WOMAN (on PA): ...that we will take part

in these Olympic Games

WOMAN (on PA): ...respecting and abiding

by the rules which govern them.

ANNOUNCER (on radio): Heide Rosendahl is also competing in the pentathlon

and the 400-meter relay,

but right now, ladies and gentlemen, everyone is waiting to see

if Heide Rosendahl can repeat her world-record performance in the long jump

here in the Olympics.

But there's much, much more to the story than just that.

Heide Rosendahl and another Heidi, Heidi Schuller,

are two teammates, two friends, two West Germans.

ICHIKAWA: The men who compete in the 100-meter finals

cover the distance in about ten seconds.

To catch these fleeting moments,

I used 34 cameras and 20,000 feet of film.

I feel this race somewhat represents

modern human existence.

I wanted to expose this.

NARRATOR: Here time is passing four times slower than normal speed.

Things the human eye could otherwise miss come into sight.

Eyes.

They must be seeing something,

but they appear to see nothing.

Expression.

Is it pain? Anxiety?

Determination?

It's like all of them, but like none of them.

Breathing.

Are they or are they not breathing while running?

It's something medical science has yet to establish.

It's something they can't even answer themselves.

ANNOUNCER: It's too close!

It's Valeriy Borzov. Valeriy Borzov. Robert Taylor, second.

NARRATOR: They run and run.

Modern, mechanized man's thirst for freedom...

changes ten seconds into an eternity.

FORMAN:Ever since I was a young boy,

it was my dream to see the Olympics.

That is, I guess, why I did this picture.

I got to see the Olympics, free.

And had the best seats at the events.

FORMAN: The decathlon.

The toughest discipline in track and field.

It requires the athletes to perform ten different events

within two days.

Yah-hoo-hoo

FORMAN:So ends the first day.

After the first five events the leader is Kirst, number 333.

Second is Avilov, number 922.

Thank you, gentlemen.

FORMAN: The last event - 1,500-meters run.

LELOUCH: At some point in life, everyone must learn to live with defeat.

I wanted to see how each person accepts that fact,

how the losers meet their sudden Ioneliness.

Nine! Ten!

MAN (on PA): Winner Hetenyi, Hungary.

MAN (on PA): On lane five with number 137.

Pentathlon moderne.

MAN (on PA): Olympic victory ceremony,

modern pentathlon.

MAN (on PA): ...Kilpatrick, holder of world record.

SCHLESINGER: I was fascinated by the individual effort of the marathon runner,

training alone for years for a 26-mile race

and competing, finally, with so much more than the race itself.

ANNOUNCER (on radio): AFNNews, from the wires of the AP and UPI.

Good afternoon. This is Paul Mackle reporting.

Another deadline has come and gone

with no developments reported at Munich's Olympic Village

where five Palestinian terrorists are holding nine Israeli team members hostage.

Two other Israelis were shot and killed this morning

as the guerrillas, armed with submachine guns,

forced their way into the Israeli quarters at the Olympic Village.

It's affected me in that it's put my race a day later.

Really, I've had to stay right at it and try not to think about it at all.

I don't want to think about what happened

because I presume I would get emotional about it.

I just want to stay right away from it.

I'm here for one thing, and that's to run a marathon.

And, um, anything that might distract me from that,

just, really, I don't want to know about -

Even the village itself, before this happened,

the sort of enormity of the stadium and the colors and things like that...

That's not why I'm here for. I'm here to run a marathon, and that's it.

NARRATOR:Ronald Hill, marathon runner.

Age: 34. Weight: 58.06 kilos.

Height: 1.69 meters.

Doctor of science, senior research chemist, Courtaulds, Manchester.

Experiments in the coloring of textile fibers.

All training runs logged since age 17.

Training: Daily, 15 miles, to and from factory.

Friday: Additional five miles during lunch break.

Sunday: Complete marathon course.

Weekly total: 135 miles.

HILL: In my own mind, I am the favorite for the race.

I think you've got to go in with this attitude.

So if I don't win, there's gonna be a reason for not winning.

It's not gonna be an excuse.

And there'll be a rational reason why.

The most difficult thing will be facing people back home who expect me to win.

And they'll say, "Well, hard luck, Ron. You know, try again next time."

MAN (faint): With number 194, Ole Ellefsaeter, the Olympic winner of '68.

HILL: In the early stages, it's all purely concentration, concentration, concentration.

Then you begin to bring in the element of fear, that they're gonna catch you.

Keep it going, 'cause your own first desire, when it gets very hard,

is to say, "Bugger this. I'm gonna stop."

ANNOUNCER:Should see Shorter enter the stadium very soon.

All the markers are down on the track.

And...

And the athlete wearing that number is not in the program.

Well, this could be a hoax.

This man looks to me to be remarkably fresh.

And now Shorter in the stadium.

Well, these Olympic Games again plagued

by lack of control.

Frank Shorter, the 25-year-old American...

An American has not won this gold medal in the marathon since 1908,

and they have not won a medal since 1924, John.

And his time is 2:12.

Moore congratulates Shorter.

Ran it together in the American marathon championship without racing it out.

And Ron Hill and Don Macgregor are sixth and seventh.

Hill's just under...

MAN (on PA): Olympic victory ceremony is now...

Nicht, nicht! Nicht!

AVERY BRUNDAGE: I declare the games of the 20th Olympiad closed.

MAN: Good!

BRUNDAGE: And in accordance with tradition,

I call upon the youth of all countries

to assemble four years from now

at Montreal,

there to celebrate with us

the games of the 21st Olympiad.

May they display cheerfulness and concord

so that the Olympic torch

will be carried on

with ever-greater eagerness,

courage and honor

for the good of humanity throughout the ages.

Auf Wiedersehen!