The 1984 Winter Olympics were a symbol of hope. Held during the Cold War in Sarajevo in what was then known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, they were only the second Olympics to be held in a Communist country. And yet the Sarajevo Games broke the tit-for-tat cycle of boycotts which began at the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics and continued with the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Even more important, things ran smoothly and the city of Sarajevo had a chance to showcase itself to the world. These outcomes lent credence to the optimistic ideal that people from the capitalist and communist worlds could set aside their differences, however briefly, and focus on what they had in common.
That optimism came to a crunching halt a few years later, as Yugoslavia disintegrated into warring factions and the city of Sarajevo came under siege from 1992 to 1995. Many of the sports facilities built for the Winter Olympics were damaged in the process, including the sliding track built on Trebević mountain, which had to be de-mined after the war and was left riddled with bullet holes. Restoring the track was not the top priority in the years that followed, and it continued to deteriorate, as cracks in the concrete widened and locals covered it with graffiti and used it as a hiking destination.
Ryan Sidhoo’s documentary The Track focuses on the efforts of three young men in Sarajevo—Zlatn Jakić, Mirza Nikolajev, and Hamza Pleho—to train to compete in luge at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, under the watchful eye of their coach Senad Omanović. All their families were affected by the war and they are aware that there’s more than just the outcome of a sporting competition at stake. Meanwhile, they focus on their training and on restoring the track (a big job as it is over a kilometer long; if restored to functionality, it would be one of only 17 such facilities in the world) and to raise funds so they can continue to train and travel to competitions.
The young men are engaging and their coach is a model of determination, but you know they’re going up against long odds. While their rivals are training full-time on modern facilities, they have to split their time and energy across multiple endeavors and practice on a track whose conditions are far less than ideal. At the same time, they all have lives to lead, and some of the most engaging moments in The Track come when Sidhoo and cinematographer Jesse McCracken leave the sporting world behind and offer us glimpses of life in present-day Sarajevo, today the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Still, Sidhoo never loses sight of the fact that The Track is a sports movie and the countdown to Beijing supplies the film with a forward momentum underlined by the soundtrack by Edo Van Breemen and Johannes Winkler. You can’t help but root for these young athletes and their coach, and The Track provides a suitable payoff to the emotions you have invested in them. At the same time, The Track reminds you that sport is not just about who wins and who loses—it’s also about taking part in the spirit of true sportsmanship. | Sarah Boslaugh
The 34th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival runs Nov. 6-16, 2025 at various locations around St. Louis. The Track screens Saturday, November 15, at 1:00pm at the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland Ave.). Further information is available from the Cinema St. Louis web site.
