The first thought that I had while watching this was that this movie was a prequel to reality telelevision. Even though it was supposed to be "real" it was edited to emphasize aspects of the contestants personalities that best fit into the "plot". I suspect that at the time, it was created to be a commercial of sorts for women's sports. It's really interesting to think about the effect that this movie had when it was released. In case anybody was curious, here's a link to Bev Francis' webpage.

http://www.bevfrancis.com/ [1]

And to be fair here's one about Rachel McLish.

http://www.legendaryfitness.com/rachel_mclish.htm [2]