After the energy spent on directing and producing "Priest of Love", a financier friend was about to buy the rights of a book we both liked, but we were beaten to the post. However I knew perfectly well it would have involved endless negotiations with agents, scripting, casting and then budgeting in order to try and raise the required money for a feature film of that size.
That same morning I saw a newspaper picture of Daley Thompson throwing a discus in training for the European Games. I knew of Daley's sporting successes so far, and I knew the ancient Greek sculpture of the discus thrower by Myron, but what was the connection between the Decathlon and the ancient Pentathlon? - I would try and find out. The European Games were in September, and it was already June, but the thought of getting together a small crew and taking a chance with a man who might win one of the most ancient of sports, seemed an exciting unscripted idea
Daley and his helpful agent, Peter Charles, seemed willing to join in the enterprise, and my bet with Daley was that I would raise the money for the film if he won, but of course it had to be in the reverse order!
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Hazel Hart witnesses my bet with Daley that if I raise the money - he will have to win!
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By sheer luck (and some hard work) I found Peter Abbey the CEO of Home Video Holdings (whose father happened to be a champion hurdler) and Eddie Kulukndis (whom I knew to be a sports fanatic) and another friend, who together with a small amount from the BBC for a later broadcast, managed to raise enough money for the film.
In between time I had been in touch with another old friend from my days at I.D.H.E.C in Paris, Stavros Konstantarakos, a film director now living in Athens. He recommended the ideal cameraman for the job and would arrange our permits for the games. We had also begun talks with ERT 1 the Greek national TV broadcaster.
All was going well until we got to see the great new stadium in Athens and discovered that the only people allowed into the stadium were ERT TV and a Hungarian sports outfit, even the BBC had to be outside the arena area. We then found the exact places for the Decathlon events, but soon realized that telephoto shooting would not be the answer. Suddenly an ERT cameraman saw us and shouted in Greek "Hela Stavriki!"and persuaded our cameraman Stavros Chassapis to enter the arena and put on a blue ERT hat and join their crew in disguise.
The luck of the Greek gods was beginning to be with us, Daley was on superb form, and won his 100 meter first event in 10.51 against his arch rival Hingsen in 11.01. Later Stavros came to see me. He said that a smartly dressed man had spotted him filming next to Daley and had gone up to speak to him saying "You're not a member of ERT, what are you doing here?" Stavros quickly answered, "I'm filming for the British director Christopher Miles, who has a contract with ERT TV"
"Really?" he replied. "Well I am the Director General of ERT and know nothing of this contract!"….. pause for breath…the other Stavros explained we had started negotiations and perhaps they had not come to his attention yet….. that afternoon he contacted us and said to we could continue, but please tell the crew not to wear those awful shorts, and to dress more smartly in the arena from now on.
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l-r Daley finishes throwing his javelin and extreme right Stavros Chassapis wearing those awful blue shorts!
The rest, as they say, became history. Daley not only won Gold but broke the World Record at the same time. So it was in a state of euphoria that Daley and his fiend Richard Slaney and our small crew drove down to ancient Olympia, where Dr Otto Szymiczek joined us to explain how the Olympic Games originally began.
