Eighty years ago James Cleveland (“Jesse”) Owens sprinted and jumped to Olympic glory in Berlin. “Race”, a biopic, was released in America yesterday, with the support of his family and the Jesse Owens Foundation. Owens was born in Alabama in 1913; his family moved north to Ohio when he was nine. The film follows him from Ohio State University to the games in Nazi Germany, where he single-handedly refuted Hitler’s myth of Aryan physical supremacy. Marlene Owens Rankin, his daughter, has praised the film’s handling of race, even down to the title’s double meaning. Stephan James, who depicted John Lewis, a civil-rights activist, in “Selma” (2014), has the title role. He has said that portraying the great athlete wasn’t easy: “I definitely had my work cut out for me…I had to learn to run like Jesse.” Few ever have, and few ever will.