Olympic track-and-field stars Dwight Stones and Bob Beamon make cameo appearances in the film, as does Australian tennis player John Newcombe.

The film raised two-thirds of its $7 million budget by pre-selling the TV rights; NBC planned to broadcast an expanded 184-minute, two-part miniseries version that would air in conjunction with the network's exclusive coverage of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

[1][4] Vincent Canby of The New York Times, called the film "a very intelligent movie of its kind, written and directed in the same brisk style that marked Mr. Sargent's earlier Colossus: The Forbin Project," as well as "a wittily conceived and executed movie that, with the straightest of faces, manage to satirize the kind of big business that surrounds so-called amateur sports today.

"[3] A review in Variety said, "'Goldengirl' is amusingly poor ... Central fault to film is Anton's character, who seems to alternate between robot, country girl and schizophrenic.

But the concept seems to have been victimized by a combination of cold feet, cross-purposes and desperate last-minute editing, which eliminated substantial pieces of exposition along with one major player, Jessica Walter, who is still listed in the credits.

"[8] Jack Kroll wrote in Newsweek, "Goldengirl fumbles a good story idea, or several good story ideas ... A film that might have had the excitement of Olympic competition and the fun of clever science-fiction founders in dump scenes, Joseph Sargent's heavy-handed direction and some awkward editing which apparently eliminated a pivotal scene showing Serafin's background in Nazi-like medical experimentation.