The
Flying Scotsman is the remarkable true story about the turbulent life of cyclist
Graeme Obree, who built his own bike out of washing machine parts and rode it
to gold at the world championships.
Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) stars as the cyclist determined to succeed
against the odds, alongside Laura Fraser (Vanilla Sky), Billy Boyd (The Lord
of the Rings trilogy) and Brian Cox (X-Men 2: X-Men United).
From a humble background, Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller) always had to fight
for survival. As a grown man, nothing had changed and when his beloved bicycle
shop went bust, Obree had neither the money nor the sponsorship necessary to
realise his dream; to compete at the highest level of world cycling. But it
was always clear from his passion for the sport that he was destined for greatness.
He faced years of gruelling preparations, problems with funding, injuries and
scandals, but with the unwavering support of his wife Anne (Laura Fraser) and
the help of his close friend and newly-appointed manager Malky (Billy Boyd),
he never gave up.
On the bike that he designed and built himself, Obree was able to adopt a new,
more aerodynamic riding posture, shaving off those few crucial seconds from
each lap around the velodrome. But the bicycle brought Obree into conflict with
the World Cycling Federation, and far from praising his ingenuity, the board
rewrote the rulebooks and went to great lengths to stop him from competing.
Defiant, Obree refused to give up, He built another bike of radical design that
squeezed through the WCF’s strict guidelines – and against all the
odds he won the World Pursuit Championship – astonishingly beating his
rival, the Olympic Gold Medal holder Chris Boardman. Graeme’s pioneering
‘Superman Position’ remains one of the most defining images in the
history of world cycling.
The Flying Scotsman is directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Jekyll, Gentlemen’s
Relish, Bodies) and written by John Brown, Declan Hughes and Simon Rose. The
producers are Sara Giles, Peter Gallagher and Peter Broughan.
Starring
Jonny Lee Miller
Billy Boyd
Laura Fraser
Brian Cox
Morven Christie
Niall Fulton
Steven Berkoff
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