Fast Girls

Fast Girls is a 2012 British sports film directed by Regan Hall and written by Jay Basu, Noel Clarke and Roy Williams. It stars Lenora Crichlow, Lily James, Bradley James, Clarke and Rupert Graves. The film follows the story of two women and their race and personal differences as they become professional sprinters and join the British relay team for a World Championship event. It had originally been intended to base the athletics competition in the film on the 2012 Summer Olympics. Due to tight legal restrictions on the use of Olympic trademarks, the International Olympic Committee disallowed any reference to the Olympic Games in the film, and the script had to be re-written to make the competition a fictional one. Released a month before the 2012 Summer Olympics, Fast Girls had its world premiere in London on 7 June 2012 and was released eight days later in the United Kingdom. The film received positive reviews from critics and earned $1 million dollars at the worldwide box office. Plot Sprinter Shanaia Andrews, who lives in a London council estate with her aunt and problematic sister, trains with a fallen-from-grace older coach on a dilapidated track in the suburbs of London. Her diligent training comes to fruition where she wins the 200m dash against the well-known, entitled runner Lisa Temple at a regional track meet. When Shanaia wins the final heat, the UK Track and Field National Team approaches her as a leg in the 4 x 100m relay team. While three other team members accept her into the fold, Temple holds a grudge against Andrews from the last race. The rivalry gets toxic and upsets Andrews, and the first exhibition indoor race turns into a disaster, as she had stayed up the previous night, falling back into her past self-destruction behaviour with her sister and dubious friends at the government housing complex. Shanaia and Lisa (anchor leg and presumed fastest runner) botch the handoff technique and the runners descend into recriminations.