Weird-looking mascot aside, this year’s Olympics are determined to show off the best that Britain has to offer. Aside from the actual games themselves, the London 2012 festival has a line-up of arts and entertainment events that’s enough to make even this staunch New York lover consider heading back there for a few weeks just to hear Damon Albarn’s opera and see Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace art installation.

For those of us not in London during this festive time, there are some programming options to help get one in the spirit.

One of them is a BBC film based on a true story, about the unlikely pairing of two rowers in a sculling race. I didn’t know what sculling was until I watched the film, but no technical knowledge is required to get caught up in the age-old story of tenacity and triumph in Going for Gold: The ’48 Games, a movie about two young men from very different backgrounds who overcome the odds at the 1948 London Olympics, the so-called Austerity Olympics, which took place after the Second World War.

Bert Bushnell, a boat-builder’s son is played by well-known Dr Who star Matt Smith, and the Eton and Oxford-educated Richard ‘Dickie’ Burnell by Sam Hoare. The actors portray two men who are thrown together just six weeks before the Games in a bid to win gold and boost the morale of the country.

I was in London for a special screening of the made-for-TV film, and spoke to the actors and scriptwriter William Ivory (Made in Dagenham) about the Olympics then and now, rowing versus sculling, and how one can buy the Olympic Torch.

Hoare says they had a week’s training to “approximate” the Olympic standard. “We won’t be fooling anyone who knows anything about rowing, but if we can convince those who don’t know that much then we would have done our job,” he chuckled. Smith said that was the most enjoyable part of the process – learning the skill of rowing, adding it almost convinced him to buy an ergo for his flat. Almost. “How they (Olympians) row at that level for six minutes is almost extraordinary. Your body is just a lever really – it’s a mechanical process – but the courage, the will, the barrier of pain you have to get through, it’s just wonderful, just incredible!” he enthused.

Ivory noted the parallels of the time – the austerity of the social times versus today’s economic times, and he said he hopes nations will come together now, just as they did back then. “The incredible sense of patriotism and unity of countrymen coming together was so powerful. To have that chance to cheer on their team, along with everyone else, that’s something that every country could use right now.”

The film was made in that spirit, and it’s hard not to be moved by the courage of the rowers. Smith says he, too, was moved by the story and said it made being an Olympic torch-bearer all the more special. “To carry the torch was such a rare and wonderful opportunity,” he said. So much so, that he bought the torch part that he carried and is planning to mount it on the wall so his “friends can come over to take pics with it”. How much did he pay for this quirk? “My dad said never talk about money,” he laughed, before adding that the experience itself was priceless.

Smith, who has to be very selective about what he does because Dr Who takes up most of his work-year says he found the story and the script to be compelling. He’s confident others will be inspired by it too.

Oh yeah, and sculling involves two oars, while rowing only requires the rower to focus on one.

Going for Gold: The ’48 Games – Monday 30 July at 20:00 on BBC Entertainment (channel 120 on DStv)

By Nadia Neophytou