HOT CORNER

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What: “:03 From Gold”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10

Less than 48 hours after one of the brightest moments in the history of U.S. international sports competition--the victory over Mexico in the World Cup--HBO examines one of the darkest moments--the controversial loss to the Soviet Union in the gold-medal basketball game at the 1972 Summer Olympics.

It wasn’t planned that way. The documentary commemorating the 30th anniversary of the historic game was to be shown at this time in order to avoid conflicts with first-run prime-time programming in September.

This excellent one-hour documentary was co-produced by Black Canyon Productions and HBO, which have teamed up on a number of award-winning documentaries over the last 10 years. The story of what happened on Sept. 9, 1972, at Munich, is told completely, thoroughly and objectively.

The game took place four days after the terrorist attack on the Olympic village that resulted in the deaths of 11 Israelis. The U.S. went into the game with a 55-game Olympic winning streak, and it appeared the Americans had won their eighth consecutive gold medal after Doug Collins made two free throws with three seconds left.

The Soviet Union failed to get a shot off, and the U.S. celebrated. But R. William Jones, secretary general of the International Basketball Federation, came on the floor and dictated that three seconds be put back on the clock because the Soviet Union had called timeout.

The horn sounded again, but again three seconds were put back on the clock because of a malfunction with the scoreboard clock.

The third time was the charm for the Soviet Union, as Ivan Edeshko threw a full-court pass to Aleksandr Belov, who scored a layup for a 51-50 victory.