ATLANTA — The road to the summer Olympics in Paris will run through Morehouse College, which will host the first professional track meet at a historically Black college.
Professional athletes will compete in the campus Edwin Moses Legends Track Meet on Friday night. The event starts at 5 p.m. and will end at 8 p.m.
Athletes competing are expected to be front and center at next month's Olympic trials.
Edwin Moses' visit will be special because it is where he prepared for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games as a participant in the 400 intermediate hurdles, a year that ended with a gold medal and a world record. Moses recounted to 11Alive how there wasn't even a track at Morehouse when he was running.
"I had to jump fences…every track in the city, I jumped fences…my motto was give me track shoes, and I'm in business," he described.
Moses is now helping the next generation of hopeful Olympic stars at the Edwin Moses Legends Track Meet held on campus.
"It's really fantastic to have a world-class track meet with world-class athletes and the possibility of running the best times in the world," Moses said.
Sydney McLaughlin, who competes in the 400 intermediate hurdles, will attend the track meet. She hopes to make this year's U.S. Olympic team.
Although she already has a gold medal and world record, she's looking to do more for her community.
"I feel honored to be here," she told 11Alive. "Edwin has done an amazing job at our sport. Being a representative of the Black community is being at the top of our sport and being able to bring it back here."
Among the other athletes competing Friday night is former University of Georgia star Matthew Boiling, who hopes to make his first Olympic team this summer.
Watch more from the Georgia athletes getting ready to compete in the Summer Olympics.