Road to Rio: A rare glimpse of the human frailty behind Olympic dreams

There's a fascinating moment, among quite a few, in the first episode of RTÉ's four-part documentary Road to Rio (Sunday to Wednesday, RTÉ2), in which an Irish athlete wins a bronze medal long after he thought his race was lost – when "irregularities" are found in a Russian competitor's "biological passport" – and another when a cyclist crashes out of Olympic contention, with an explosion of anger, through clerical error. You might tune in to a sports documentary for nail-biting anticipation and heart-pounding finish, but programme makers Darragh Bambrick and Dhruba Banerjee actually manage to exalt both its beauty and banality, its preparation and process.

That may sound dreary, but if you’ve watched this documentary, first broadcast in May and repeated this week in a final Olympic sprint, the images you remember aren’t the heave and splash of Matt McGovern and Ryan Seaton’s 49er dinghy, but of McGovern, a stress-pot, doing the dishes, while Seaton, an irrepressible imp, serenades him with a guitar. They have qualified for the Olympics. “We’re just trying to keep our emotions in check,” says McGovern. Some chance.

When we meet Martyn Irvine, Ireland’s first gold medallist in track cycling for 117 years, he is still recuperating from a career-halting accident, his wife has stalled her career to support him and his mental attitude is not positive. “My miserable state is haunting me,” he says. “I’m trying to shake it.” Such emotional honesty is rare in sports. “You’ve probably witnessed my last scratch race,” he says grimly. Although his failure to qualify is blamed on administrative oversight, some nameless “whoever”, Irvine’s tragedy is that he can’t shake the misery. His race is over. He retired from sports shortly after.

Life after politics
All political careers end in failure, we know, but at least one is bound for Gettysburg. At least, that's the destination of Michael Portillo's Great American Railroad Journeys (Wednesday, BBC2), in which the former Tory minister and "darling of the right" takes a sentimental journey through the former colonies. His path is informed by a trusty leather-bound guidebook, Appleton's General Guide to the United States and Canada, from 1879, which may help to explain why Portillo seems to regard American independence as an endearing, possibly temporary quirk.

Those who have been following Portillo’s rebirth as a media figure in bright sports jackets may notice a faint blush of similarity to previous projects such as Great British Railway Journeys (in which he was assisted by a 1863 guidebook) or Great Continental Railway Journeys (1913 guidebook). So, as a sepia map traces his current adventure in lines that resemble a reversed question mark, you could be forgiven for thinking he is now merely going through the motions.

As a presenter, he certainly is, relying on a grand unclasping and reclasping of his hands, as though playing an invisible hand organ. His tune rarely alters: a soupcon of history, a bite-sized interview with a representative of the plain folk, a self-deprecating gag and a nation-deprecating remark. In Philadelphia he admires plinths, spurting fountains and skyscrapers, and if this weren’t already enough for armchair Freudians, he says “Philadelphia, laid at my feet”, a priapic conqueror.

Portillo makes for a likeable companion nonetheless, because of his fascinating awkwardness and his lingering ambiguity. “It’s been a real joy sharing lunch with you,” he tells a stranger quite earnestly after a clearly joyless and gloop-filled Philly Cheesesteak, as though there might still be a vote in it. Otherwise, he compares anything he encounters in America to an English equivalent. The exhibition halls in Philly “would dwarf Crystal Palace”; American football (for which he kits up, immensely pleased) is “derived from British rugby”; at one point, passing through Philadelphia, he quibbles: “With apologies to Appleton, it doesn’t in any way remind me of England.”

More than the nostalgic plumes of the steam engine he rides on the Strasburg Railway, that, you realise, is what Portillo – the Spanish-born Eurosceptic and Brexit champion – is looking for: not the true history and legacy of locomotive America, but a more elusive ideal of England, one that has gone firmly off the rails.

For another very British view of the US that seems to say considerably more about the viewer, try How to Win the US Presidency (Netflix). Like Portillo's programme, Cal Saville's amped-up documentary is guided by a sense of historical fascination, wry observation and utterly undisguised infatuation. But unlike Portillo, the tone of Saville's programme is so unsure of itself and shot through with so many American inflections, it could pass for an ebullient entry in the green-card lottery. Advertised as "whimsical", Saville's mode is actually something far giddier, like a history grad student's goof.

Combining talking-head interviews with English academics and journalists and found footage from various archives, it can't decide whether it is a serious documentary compromised by its frivolity, or a frivolous documentary redeemed by its seriousness. In 1776, Saville tells us, America declared its independence from King George "and his fabulous clothes". Later, comparing American democracy to that of the Roman Republic, he offers, "Heck, even the symbols are the same."

That ill-fitting “heck”, however ironic, suggests a television programme without any persuasive voice of its own, no matter how fabulously it is dressed. It’s a shame, because at a time when the US presidential elections look more monstrous than ever, some historical perspective on how we arrived at this mess would be worthwhile.

Finding among his exclusively English assessors “an unbiased and level-headed” approach, Saville divides his show into headings (Money, Celebrity, Religion, The Look, Family, The Message), remaining oblivious to both its bias and carelessness.

Sure, it's got an admirably clear explanation of the electoral college system, a breezy attention to historical marginalia, and a taste for notable quotables. For one, Dwight Eisenhower: "Anyone who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy." This year, you can decide who's who.

A reliance on such blips is telling, though, because even as one don insists the art of being US president is the art of rhetoric, this documentary is all about the art of slogans: Keep Cool with Coolidge, I Like Ike, Let’s Make America Great Again, Yes We Can. That’s a neat history of political advertising, tailored to contemporary attention spans, but the documentary doesn’t go deeper. Where’s the beef?

ONES TO WATCH: DISCO, HIP-HOP AND HIGH JUMPS
Can we take the 1970s seriously? Let's hope not. Sumptuous visual fetishist Baz Luhrmann and streetwise playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis have mined the music and culture of the decade in New York in The Get Down (Netflix, August 12th) for a coming-of-age tale set against the tail end of disco and hip-hop's first break. Sports competition started in Ancient Greece. Since enhanced: Olympics – Rio 2016 (Many channels, all the time).