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What: “Bud Greenspan Remembers: The 1984 L.A. Olympics.”

Where: Showtime, tonight, 9.

It has been 20 years, but so many of the memories from the Los Angeles Summer Olympics remain with us.

In this superb 1 1/2-hour documentary, legendary Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan brings back many of those memories, retelling the biggest stories and revisiting the biggest stars.

In the first segment, Peter Ueberroth talks about how the 1984 Summer Games might have saved the Olympic movement. Another interesting interview is with Rafer Johnson, who reflects on lighting the Olympic torch. Johnson describes how, after suffering from shin splints, he worried about making it to the top of the Coliseum’s peristyle end.

After the opening segment come five stories, told in vintage Greenspan style. Gymnast Mary Lou Retton looks back at her heroics. Joan Benoit (now Joan Benoit Samuelson) revisits her triumph in the first women’s Olympic marathon. Triple jump gold-medal winner Al Joyner and his sister, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, are featured in a segment. Another involves swimmer Rowdy Gaines.

Probably the most poignant of the five stories is about Mary Decker (now Mary Decker Slaney) and her fall in the women’s 3,000. With 3 1/2 laps to go, Decker’s feet tangled with those of Zola Budd and she went down. Decker crying as physical and emotional pain engulfed her is one of the most vivid memories from the ’84 Summer Olympics.

The greatest female distance runner of her time would never win an Olympic medal.

Decker Slaney now lives in Eugene, Ore. She has a different perspective on the incident 20 years later.

“A single moment on the track doesn’t define your whole life,” she says. “I do think what I experienced in 1984 made me a stronger person. I think it made me a better person.”

-- Larry Stewart