After 8 months, two Steve Prefontaine Movies battle it out for top honors

By LetsRun.com

December 2001

8 months ago we started our LetsRun.com Best Running Movie of All-Time Voting. We started with 18 movies, narrowed the field down to 8 movies in the first round of voting, then pitted the remaining movies against each other one on one NCAA tournament basketball style, until we narrowed the field to our two finalists, Steve Prefontaine: Fire on the Track and Without Limits. After sitting on the results for 5 months, we’re proud to announce that the Best Running Movie of All-Time is Steve Prefontaine Fire on the Track (a movie which unbelievably we haven’t seen).

We suspect a lot of track and field afficionados haven’t seen Fire on the Track. (Fire on the Track was only in 4th place after our first round of voting when viewers could vote for their 4 favorite movies). However, this movie apparently is a must see, as those that have seen it, love it as it came out on top in the final rounds when it was pitted head to head versus the advancing running movies which were more widely seen by voters. Fire on the Track came out on top over an Academy Award winning film, Chariots of Fire in the semi-finals, and in the finals triumphed over Without Limits, the Steve Prefontaine movie that had big screen publicity and Tom Cruise as a producer.

And Fire on the Track’s triumph over more widely publicized films is exactly why we wanted our viewers to settle the issue of what the best running movie of all-time was. We did not care what Hollywood or the Academy thought. We wanted to know what our hard core running viewers thought was the best running movie of all-time. And now we know. Fire on the Track is a documentary on Steve Prefontaine, America’s top distance runner in the 1970’s whose front running style, brashness, and American records from 2,000m to 10,000m captivated the American track public like no other distance runner. He narrowly missed an Olympic medal in 1972 and then his life was tragically cut short in a car accident. Fire on the Track is excellently produced, has in depth footage of the 1972 Olympic 5k final, with comments from Prefontaine’s competitors.

Update!!!: Now Available on DVD



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Running Movies 2 through 10 below,

with contest recap at bottom of page.

Article continues below player

Running Movies 2 through 10 below, with contest recap at bottom of page.

Below: Fire on the Track’s Path to Victory

After 1st Round Semi-Finals Finals Winner (1) Chariots of Fire 47% (8) Jim Ryun 14% (1) Chariots of Fire (4) Fire on the Track 43% (5) Endurance 39% (4) Fire on the Track FIRE ON THE TRACK

51%-49% (3) Running Brave 44% (2) Without Limits (6) Prefontaine 34% (3) Running Brave (2) Without Limits 46% (7) Jericho Mile 20%

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