HOT CORNER
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What: “Salt Lake 2002: Bud Greenspan’s Stories of Olympic Glory.”
Where: Showtime, tonight, 9.
This is Bud Greenspan’s seventh Olympic film, and his formula works once again. This may be Greenspan’s best work.
The two-hour film opens majestically, featuring highlights of the opening ceremony at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Then come stories as only Greenspan can tell them.
They are not a rehash of what American viewers already have seen. What appeals to Greenspan are the lesser-known stories, or stories that were not given in-depth coverage by network television.
The heart of the film consists of six such stories, all of which are certain to draw a few tears.
Viewers may be the most familiar with the first, Jimmy Shea and his quest for a gold medal in the skeleton. His 91-year-old grandfather, Jack, who won two speed-skating gold medals at the 1932 Winter Olympics, was killed in an auto accident involving a drunk driver 17 days before the Salt Lake Games.
The second story is about Janica Kostelic, who not only won the first Winter Olympic medal for Croatia but ended up with three golds and one silver, becoming the first alpine skier, male or female, to win four medals in a single Olympics.
Canada’s success in men’s hockey is the third story, followed by the tale of 33-year-old Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo. Her customized skies were stolen less than two weeks before the Games, and then during the 15-kilometer freestyle, one of her poles broke at the 10K point of the race. Her emotions are what make this story.
Whether by design or by accident, the two best stories come at the end of the film. One is about Australian aerial skiing competitor Alisa Camplin, who has trained for the event by landing in a dirty brown pond. “Imagine the U.S. team training in this muck,” she says.
The final story is about Brian Shimer, the driver on the United States’ No. 2 four-man bobsled team.
-- Larry Stewart