Personally, I'm on the side of the aristocrats.

Rating: 7/10 (23 July 1999)

A young English runner is reviled by The Establishment because he hires a professional trainer. The Establishment feels that this is setting a dangerous precedent. Too many more concessions like this, they think, and the amateur spirit will be lost.
They're absolutely right. Look at the Olympics nowadays: a hive of corruption and even the ping pong players are in it for the money. Moreover the athletes - ESPECIALLY in sports like running - have been trained to the eyeballs to the point where they become specialised machines who consult both coach and sponsor before deciding what shoes to wear. Good on the aristocrats who used to run the games. If only they'd held out longer.
Perhaps I'm straying a little from the point. I suppose the point is this. When you see a group of runners lined up at the start of a race, the positions is symmetrical. A win for one is a loss for everyone else. Exactly one person will win, whatever happens - so why should we want one person in particular to win? We need some fact to break the symmetry: this athlete has overcome overwhelming odds; that athlete is the only one who isn't cheating; this other athlete is such a nice chap. So what are we given in "Chariots of Fire"? An athlete who is trying to steal a march on his competitors by starting a training arms race, and another athlete who has changed events because he has a superstition about the day of the week on which he's been scheduled. I tempts me to root for one of the unknowns.
This doesn't matter if the film is well enough staged. And sure enough, people tell me it's been filmed in such an inspiring way. Maybe they're right. I don't see it myself. I know I've seen races that have made my pulse quicken much more - quite apart from the fact that I was offered little reason to want the two stars to win, in the first place.