Sports, youth, and raging hormones: this is 'Olympus,' Netflix's new teen series.
Clara Galle stars in this fiction about young people from a high-performance center.
BarcelonaMuscular bodies, ambitions, and dramas of all kinds. Netflix's new youth offering, Olympo, relies on these three elements and a rising star, the Navarrese Clara Galle, to seduce the spectators who fell in love with Elite, one of the most popular series in the history of streaming services. Still, beyond its target audience and a few sex scenes, the two have little in common. Olympo, which arrives on the platform this Friday, poses the eternal question of how far one is willing to go to fulfill one's dreams, in this case, sporting ones.
Olympo, created by Jan Matheu, Ibai Abad, and Laia Foguet, is set in a high-performance sports center. Zoe (Nira Osahia), a girl with a troubled past but a potentially bright future as an athlete, arrives there. Accustomed to a different kind of life, she doesn't quite understand the pressure the residents of CAR Pirineos put on themselves. One of the center's most outstanding athletes, and one of the most self-demanding, is Amaia (Clara Galle), a synchronized swimmer who aspires to go to the Olympics and fulfill the dream her mother couldn't achieve. Her duet partner and best friend is Núria (María Romanillos), who unexpectedly surpasses her athletically for the first time. As a result, Amaia realizes that other athletes at the center are improving their performance at an exceptional rate. In addition to addressing the problem of doping, the series also deals with issues such as homophobia within sports.
Clara Galle, actress who became famous for the film series Through..., is the most visible face of the young cast of the series (the actress is a true phenomenon on social networks, where she has accumulated almost five million followers). She is the main female protagonist, but the series has also used fashionable male faces such as Nuno Gallego (Clans, Elite) and the Uruguayan Agustín Dellacorte, one of the protagonists of The Snow Society.
Actors in shape
One of the requirements for being part of the cast was being in shape, because most of the actors had to play professional athletes. Some had already done some of the work, such as Dellacorte, a former rugby player who played for his country's national team, but all of them had undergone training. During his time in The RevoltGalle explained that, although she had always played sports, thanks to the series she had acquired a taste for synchronized swimming. and, once filming was over, he still practices this sport at the municipal gym in the neighborhood where he lives.
About the constant comparisons between Olympo and Elite Since the project was announced, the actors have played down the importance of the project. Galle admits that he understands this, because both series share elements, such as the fact that they star young people living together in the same center, and were created by the production company itself, Zeta Studios. "I really like that they say it's the new thing." Elite"Because if that's really the impression from the beginning, it means there's a motivation to watch the series," Galle reasons.
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'The Academy' (3Cat)
One of the latest youth sports series to air on 3Cat is this soccer drama. The main setting of L'Acadèmia is the Apolo FC training center, where a group of boys and girls prepare to become world soccer stars. During their time at the school, the youngsters must grow not only as athletes but also as people, which leads to the exploration of diverse—and essential—topics in a youth series, such as sexual awakening, insecurities, self-improvement, and family relationships.
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'The hockey ones'
In Catalonia, we also find "Las del hockey," a series with a feminine and feminist perspective that followed the lives of seven teenage players on the Club Patí Minerva hockey team and their coach. Born from a final year project, the series focused on a young cast and allowed for the discovery of new actors such as Clàudia Riera and Asia Ortega.
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'Friday Night Lights'
Airing between 2006 and 2011, "Friday Night Lights" is surely one of the benchmarks for youth sports series. The series was set in Texas and focused on the inner workings of the members of a small-town high school football team, providing an opportunity to discuss many other issues, including racism, abortion, and the lack of opportunities in the United States. It won two Emmy Awards: Best Actor for Kyle Chandler, who played the coach, and Best Drama Writing.
