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Jesse Owens, son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, became a track star at his alma mater of Ohio State University, where Larry Snyder, a former promising track star himself, is head coach of the track team. Coach Snyder sees raw talent in the young man, and knowing that the 1936 Olympics isn’t too far in the distance, he thinks that Owens is just the diamond in the rough the country needs to win Olympic Gold, showing him how to work on a proper start to the race, and adding the long jump to his repertoire. However, the Olympics is to be held in the lions’ den of racial intolerance, Berlin under Hitler’s regime, and the intent of the games under the leadership of Joseph Goebbels is to show that the Aryan race is the supreme race in the world. With the International Olympic Committee conflicted about whether to boycott the games, and the NAACP requesting Owens also sit it out in protest, it’s looking bleak for what might be the fastest runner in the world to find his claim to fame.
