There is a depressing coda to the Owens story, however, for the hero of the Berlin Games subsequently returned home to an America that was itself tainted by profound racial discrimination.

CNN: Olympic memories: Owens at Berlin

Jesse Owens was the star of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, winning four gold medals under the glare of Adolf Hitler.

CNN: Paralympian Pistorius to race a horse

The film won an array of German prizes and led directly to a commission to film the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.

ECONOMIST: Leni Riefenstahl: Hand-held history | The

Ms Riefenstahl, whose work included the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will, about the 1934 Nazi Party Nuremberg Rally and Olympia, glorifying the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, has twice been cleared of complicity with the Nazis by war crimes courts following the collapse of the Nazi regime at the end of World War II.

BBC: Riefenstahl race-hate charges dropped

The Berlin company has some of the top social games on Facebook, with titles such as Diamond Dash, which has about 70 million total users since it was released in March 2011.

FORBES: Wooga Ramps Up Mobile Strategy With New Android, iOS Titles

Given the impact she has made on UK athletics, and the high-profile she has enjoyed since Berlin, many people forget that this will be her first ever Games.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Berlin gaming startup Wooga has made a major move from Facebook-based social games to mobile games over the past year.

FORBES: Wooga Expands In Mobile, With Bubble Island For iPhone, iPad

The flame will burn until the Games end on August 12 -- a tradition that was revived at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

CNN: 2012 Olympic flame lit in ancient stadium