ESPN Films today announced the first sports documentary filmmaking grant to be awarded through the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. The funds granted to the Institute are intended to provide financial support to one Documentary Film Program filmmaker with a sports-focused, contemporary-issue themed project, as well as year round support for the Program’s Labs other activities. The first grant recipient, chosen from a pool of nominees, is Town of Runners from award-winning U.K.-based director Jerry Rothwell. Town Of Runners is a feature documentary, directed by Jerry Rothwell, about young people from the Ethiopian rural town of Bekoji, home to the current Olympic and World champions Tirunesh Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele. The success of runners from Bekoji is partly due to the dedication of coach Sentayehu Eshetu. Since his protégé Derartu Tulu became the first African woman to win an Olympic gold in 1996, he has trained and inspired some of the world’s greatest athletes. At dawn each morning Sentayehu oversees an enthusiastic group of more than 200 young runners through a set of punishing hill runs. Amongst them are Alemii, a farmer’s daughter, who needs to persuade her family that she can make a different kind of life from her mother; Biruk, who has to juggle looking after his grandmother’s kiosk with training; Hawii, perhaps the most likely to succeed, whose older sister has achieved her ambition to run in the U.S.; and Million, the banana seller and oldest of the group, who must either succeed this year or give up his dream.