The 1936 Summer Olympics torch relay, as devised for the Games by the secretary general of the Organizing Committee, Dr. Carl Diem, is shown in the film.

However, the techniques Riefenstahl employed are almost universally admired and had a lasting influence on film and television coverage of sport events.

[2] Joseph Goebbels discussed making the film with Leni Riefenstahl on 28 June 1935, after she received an award for Triumph of the Will.

[3] Many advanced motion picture techniques, which later became industry standards but which were groundbreaking at the time, were employed, including unusual camera angles, smash cuts, extreme close-ups and placing tracking shot rails within the bleachers.

[11][6] Riefenstahl toured the United States, during which she met Henry Ford and Walt Disney, in an attempt to distribute the film there.

However, Kristallnacht and protests from organizations including the Jewish Labor Committee and Hollywood Anti-Nazi League doomed her efforts.

It was re-released in the United States in 1948 under the title Kings of the Olympics in a truncated version acquired from Germany by the U.S. Office of Alien Property Custodian and severely edited without Riefenstahl's involvement.

[14] In 1955 Riefenstahl agreed to remove three minutes of Hitler footage for screening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

"[16] American film critic Richard Corliss observed in Time that "the matter of Riefenstahl 'the Nazi director' is worth raising so it can be dismissed.