For many of us in Australia,OJ was little known before 1994;our notion of him as a celebrity was formed in those moments he lay crouched in the back seat of a white Ford Bronco,gun allegedly at his own head,as the car hurtled down a Los Angeles freeway,hotly pursued by a fleet of police cars,with news helicopters hovering overhead.

Though it opens with Simpson being grilled in a courtroom – over subsequent charges,in 2008 – this episode largely serves as back story,and it is a revelation.

We see Simpson as a young college footballer,and he is a thing of beauty,both on the field and off. He's clean-cut,eloquent,with a face like a Roman statue and the grace of the truly exceptional athlete. He couldn't catch a ball for quids,but he could run and dodge like no one else.

Archival footage of him at his fleet-footed best makes it clear how special he was. Interview subjects – bizarrely,none of them identified on screen – talk in hushed tones of"the run",a 64-yard dash that ended in a touchdown for Simpson,and victory for his school,USC,against arch-rivals UCLA in what many regard as the greatest game of college football ever played. It's impossible for even the most grid-iron ignorant to be unimpressed.