Cathal Dennehy: SPRINT allows access but shuts out elephant-sized syringe in the room

The second series of the Netflix docuseries that follows the world’s fastest athletes aired last week. It’s exhilarating, emotional, evocative but frustrating.

Second season of ‘SPRINT’ arrived on Netflix last week.

There are things it does brilliantly. There are things it does badly. Then there are things it doesn’t do at all. This was always going to be the case for SPRINT, the Netflix docuseries that follows the world’s fastest athletes. You can't please all of the people all of the time.

The second season aired last week and in parts, it’s exhilarating, emotional and highly evocative. In other parts it’s frustrating, skimming across subjects at breakneck speed. In parts it also becomes annoying, overlooking the history of Dennis Mitchell, a coach with a dark past, ignoring the elephant-sized syringe in the room.