Netflix’s Elite Successor Cancelled After One Season: Why It Never Took Off

Once hyped as Elite’s heir, Netflix Spain’s Olympo has been axed after just one season—despite a buzzy June 2025 debut that fused teen drama with high-stakes sports.

Netflix Spain rolled out Olympo this past June looking like the next Elite-sized YA obsession. Six months later, it is already over. The streamer has pulled the plug after just one season. It had early buzz, a slick sports-meets-drama hook, and even some winks about a season 2 from the creative team. But it never quite stuck the landing.

What Olympo was trying to be

Set at a prestigious training center, the series follows a group of young athletes chasing a career-making sponsorship from the brand Olympo. Think high-stakes competition, glossy facilities, big emotions. The cast is stacked with familiar Spanish YA faces: Clara Galle (as Amaia), Nira Osahia (as Zoe), Agustín Della Corte, Nuno Gallego, María Romanillos, Andy Duato, Najwa Khliwa, Juan Perales, Martí Cordero, Jesús Rubio, and Melina Matthews. It is a Spanish production created by Jan Matheu, Laia Fogue, and Ibai Abad.

The cancellation, in plain terms

Olympo premiered in June 2025 and, despite an attention-grabbing launch and those early murmurs about where season 2 could go, Netflix confirmed the show would not return about six months later. For context, it is a non-English-language (Spanish) series that was positioned to replace Elite in the YA lane. That is a tough comparison to live up to, and you felt it.

So... what went wrong?

• Character work that did not add up: Zoe (Nira Osahia) is introduced as a promising athlete, but the show rarely treats her like one. She spends more energy on partying and messy personal choices than actual training, which undercuts the premise of a high-performance environment.
• A serious storyline with oddly light consequences: The series implies Zoe was involved in a car accident while intoxicated that led to her friend’s death. In real life, that is career-ending territory. Here, the fallout is surprisingly soft, and she even ends up courted by Olympo’s rep. That disconnect is jarring.
• The mystery 'blue' boost: A sudden-performance serum pops up, appears to supercharge results, and then... not much. No clear explanation of what it is, where it comes from, or why it works so fast. It is the kind of thread that should tie deeper into the show’s darker corners (the accident, the coach, the brand) but never really does.
• The sponsorship setup feels 2005, not 2025: Olympo is framed as the only golden ticket. In reality, athletes chase multiple brands across different categories. Making one apparel sponsor the be-all, end-all undercuts the stakes because it just does not reflect how modern sports ecosystems work.
• Not enough actual sport: For a show marketed as a sports drama, the training and competition take a back seat to romance and soap. If you are selling elite athletics, you need the grind, the technique, the wins and losses — the series rarely gets there.
• Vague antagonists: The Olympo representatives are positioned as shadowy power players, but their motives and backgrounds stay fuzzy. Are they ex-athletes with scars? Corporate climbers? Without clarity, the 'big bad' lacks bite.
• The Elite comparison hurts: Elite’s early seasons delivered sharp suspense and splashy twists. Olympo had the packaging but not the sustained tension or world-building to match, and viewers noticed.

Reception snapshot

If you want the temperature check: IMDb sits at 6/10 and Rotten Tomatoes is at 43%. That lines up with the 'promising idea, uneven execution' vibe.

Could it have been saved?

Yeah, probably — with a clearer spine. Put the sport back at the center, make the sponsorship game feel authentic and ruthless, tie the blue serum into the accident and the adults running the place, and give the antagonists recognizable agendas. The show kept setting enticing dominoes and then walked away before knocking them down.

Where to watch

Olympo season 1 is streaming on Netflix in the US. If you are curious what the fuss was about — or want to imagine the sharper version of the show that might have been — it is all there.

The bottom line

Olympo arrived with momentum, a photogenic cast, and the promise of a new flagship for Spanish YA. The follow-through just was not there, and in 2025, Netflix moves fast when a would-be hit does not convert.