In the film Yu.N. Ozerov and B.N.Richkov "O sport, you are the world!", dedicated to the holding of the Olympics-80, there were animated drawing fragments made by F. Khitruk's group (artists L. Koshkina and V. Zuykov). Work on the animated inserts began in March 1980, lasted throughout the Olympics, along with the filming of the documentary part of the film, and was completed in September 1980. However, in the finished film, not all the volume of the material collected by Khitruk entered. On the contrary, most of the footage (of the 408 meters taken) remained unclaimed. Therefore, Khitruk had the idea to combine the entire footage into an independent animated film about the history of the ancient Olympiads.
