Jesse OWENS - Olympic Athletics | United States of America Jesse OWENS Jesse Owens became a sporting legend for his achievements at the 1936 Berlin Games. Sporting history In 1935, Jesse Owens made sporting history when he broke five world records and equalled a sixth in the space of 45 minutes. One of these world records, 8.13m in the long jump, would last for 25 years. Berlin 1936 At the 1936 Berlin Games, Owens won four gold medals, in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and the long jump. He managed to break or equal nine Olympic records and also set three world records. One of those world records was in the 4x100m relay. The quartet set a time that wouldn’t be bettered for 20 years. Defying Hitler Adolf Hitler hoped that the 1936 Berlin Games would prove his theory of Aryan racial superiority. Instead, Owens’ achievements led the people of Berlin to hail him, an African-American, as a hero.

Posthumous honours Jesse Owens died of lung cancer in 1980. Since then a street and a school have been named after him in Berlin, two US postage stamps have been issued in his honour, and a memorial park has been opened in Alabama, amongst other tributes. Owens wins 4th gold medal - Aug 09, 1936 - HISTORY.com Owens wins 4th gold medal Share this: Owens wins 4th gold medal Author Owens wins 4th gold medal URL Publisher A+E Networks At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, African American track star Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal of the Games in the 4×100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of 39.8 seconds, which held for 20 years. In their strong showing in track-and-field events at the XIth Olympiad, Jesse Owens and other African American athletes struck a propaganda blow against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who planned to use the Berlin Games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority. Born the son of Alabama sharecroppers in 1913, Owens emerged as a major track talent while attending high school in Cleveland, Ohio.

Later, at Ohio State University, he demonstrated himself to be one of the greatest athletes in the world. In a single day of competition–May 25, 1935–Owens broke the world records for the 220-yard dash, the 220-yard low hurdles, and the running broad jump, and equaled the world record for the 100-yard dash. The next summer, Owens and 311 other American athletes, including 17 African Americans, traveled to Nazi Germany to represent the United States at the XIth Olympiad. In 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. The choice was meant to signal Germany’s return to the world community after defeat in World War I. Two years later, however, Adolf Hitler came to power. He transformed the democratic German government into a one-party dictatorship, purged political opponents and suspected dissidents, instituted anti-Semitic policies, and began the remilitarization of Germany. Hitler initially held the Olympics in low regard because of their internationalism but became an avid supporter after Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels convinced him of their propaganda value.

Seen as an opportunity to advance Nazi ideology, Hitler provided extensive funding for the Berlin Games, which promised to be the largest modern Olympics to date. The Nazi government used sport as part of its drive to strengthen the “Aryan race,” and “Non-Aryans”–Jewish, part-Jewish, or Gypsy athletes–were systematically excluded from Nazi-sponsored sports facilities and associations. By 1935, a number of athletic groups in the United States were pushing for a boycott of the Berlin Games, but after a heated debate U.S. participation was narrowly approved in December 1935. A number of prominent Jewish athletes in the United States and other countries decided to independently boycott the Games in protest of Nazi oppression of Jews. Spain also planned an alternate “People’s Olympics” to be held in Barcelona in July 1936, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War forced its cancellation. In the end, 49 nations sent some 4,000 athletes to the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Under international pressure, the Nazis agreed to allow one part-Jewish athlete on its Olympic team: fencer Helene Mayer.

However, Joseph Goebbels forbid the Nazi-controlled German press from discussing the ethnicity of the blond-haired Mayer. On August 1, 1936, Adolf Hitler opened the XIth Olympiad. The Olympic ritual of a runner arriving bearing a torch carried by relay from Olympia, Greece, occurred for the first time. The Nazis advertised this ceremony as a symbol of the myth that German civilization was the inheritor of the glorified culture of ancient Greece. Olympic flags and swastika-bearing Nazi banners hung everywhere in Berlin. To prevent controversy, the anti-Jewish signs hung throughout the city were removed during the Games, and Jewish athletes and visitors from other countries were not subjected to anti-Jewish laws. Gypsies were cleared off the streets and interned in a camp at the edge of Berlin. A festive and hospitable atmosphere pervaded the German capital, and most tourists left the city with positive memories of their stay there. With 348 athletes, Germany had the largest national team and captured the most medals overall, greatly pleasing Hitler. The Americans, however, dominated the popular track-and-field events.

On the first day of competition, Hitler, who had been congratulating German and select other winners, left the stadium shortly after three African Americans swept the high-jump event. Whether Hitler left to avoid shaking hands with non-Aryans is unclear. In the aftermath of the incident, Olympic organizers asked Hitler to either receive all the medal winners or none, and he chose the latter. Contrary to the popular myth, Hitler never directly snubbed Jesse Owens, but he did continue to privately receive German winners throughout the Games. With his four gold medals, Jesse Owens was the star of the Berlin Olympics. He equaled the world record (10.3 seconds) in the 100-meter race and broke the world records in the 200-meter race (20.7 seconds) and in the broad jump (26 feet 5 3/8 inches). He was enthusiastically applauded by the largely German crowd and developed a friendship with German long jumper and silver medalist Luz Long. However, he and other African American Olympians were demeaned by a Nazi newspaper that wrote of them as the “black auxiliaries” of the American team.

On August 9, Owens won his fourth medal as a member of the mixed-race 4×100-meter relay team. The world-record-breaking triumph was tainted by the revelation that U.S. coaches had benched two American Jewish relay runners the day before the event. Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were replaced with Owens and African American Ralph Metcalfe, the two best U.S. sprinters. However, both Stoller and Glickman had out-run Foy Draper, a white American who remained on the team, in a practice race. The coaches said Draper was more experienced, but Glickman and others thought that anti-Semitism was involved. Stoller, however, thought favoritism was to blame, as Draper and the fourth runner, Frank Wykoff, had trained under one of the Olympic coaches at the University of Southern California. Despite the embarrassment of seeing his best Aryan runners bested by African Americans, Adolf Hitler hailed the Berlin Olympics as a great success.

He commissioned a German architect to design a colossal, 400,000-seat stadium at Nuremberg that would host Olympics for “all time to come.” The outbreak of World War II in 1939 prevented the building of the stadium, and by 1945 Hitler’s plans for Nazi world domination had ended in absolute defeat. In the decades of Cold War that followed, the United States and the Soviet Union exploited the propaganda potential of the Olympic Games as freely as the Nazis did at Berlin in 1936. Although only 23, Jesse Owens retired from amateur competition shortly after the Berlin Olympics in order to capitalize on his fame. This effectively brought his athletic career to an end. He later engaged in boys’-guidance activities, made goodwill visits to Asia for the U.S. Department of State, and served as secretary of the Illinois State Athletic Commission. He died in 1980.

Related Videos Jesse Owens wins 4 gold medals at 1936 Summer Olympics | World History Project Aug 3 1936 to Aug 9 1936 Jesse Owens wins 4 gold medals at 1936 Summer Olympics In 1936, Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high hopes German athletes would dominate the games with victories (the German athletes achieved a top of the table medal haul). Meanwhile, Nazi propaganda promoted concepts of "Aryan racial superiority" and depicted ethnic Africans as inferior.

Owens surprised many and showed the fallacies of racial supremacy by winning four gold medals: On August 3, 1936 he won the 100m sprint, defeating Ralph Metcalfe; on August 4, the long jump (later crediting friendly and helpful advice from Luz Long, the German competitor he ultimately defeated); on August 5, the 200m sprint; and, after he was added to the 4 x 100 m relay team, his fourth on August 9 (a performance not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics). Just before the competitions Owens was visited in the Olympic village by Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas. He persuaded Owens to use Adidas shoes and it was the first sponsorship for a male African-American athlete. The long jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl. On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium. Olympic committee officials then insisted Hitler greet each and every medalist or none at all.

Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations. On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens recounted: "When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany."" He also stated: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor bestowed any honors by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower acknowledged Owens's accomplishments, naming him an "Ambassador of Sports." Hitler's contempt for Owens and for those races he deemed 'inferior' arose in private, away from maintaining Olympic neutrality.

As Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and later war armaments minister recollected in his memoirs Inside the Third Reich: "Each of the German victories and there were a surprising number of these made him happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games. Despite Hitler's feelings, Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that blacks in the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend his own reception at the Waldorf-Astoria. Source: Wikipedia Added by: Kevin Rogers It was the summer of 1936 and Nazism was running rampant throughout pre-World War II Eastern Europe.

The Olympics were coming to Berlin and Adolf Hitler viewed it as a golden opportunity to showcase his country and prove to the rest of the world that his Aryan race was superior. Not so fast, Adolf. Twenty-two-year-old American Jesse Owens didn't care much for Hitler's politics—or any politics for that matter. He just wanted to show off his immense skills and represent his country to the best of his abilities. Just over a year earlier, on May 25, 1935, Owens recorded one of the more mind-boggling performances in track and field history. He broke three world records and tied another at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in Michigan—in just 45 minutes! Hitler viewed African-Americans as inferior and chastised the United States for stooping to use these "non-humans." Despite the endless racial epithets and the constant presence of the red and black swastika, Owens made Hitler eat his words with four gold medals. Owens Hits Gold The first gold was in the 100 meters, where Owens edged out teammate Ralph Metcalfe in a time of 10.3 seconds. Gold number two came in the long jump, where he fouled on his first two attempts.

One was just a practice run where he continued down the runway into the pit, but German officials didn't buy it and counted it as a jump. Top German long jumper Luz Long suggested Owens play it safe and jump a few inches before the usual take-off spot. He took his advice and qualified for the finals, where he won the gold with a leap of 26—5½. And Long was there to congratulate him. "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler," Owens would later say. "You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment." The third gold was in the 200-meter dash, where he defeated, among others, Jackie Robinson's older brother Mack and broke the Olympic record with a time of 20.7 seconds. Gold number four was a controversial one—not with the Germans, but with his fellow Americans. American Jews Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were supposed to run for the United States on the 4x100 relay team.

At the last minute, they were replaced by Owens and Metcalfe and it was reported that Hitler asked U.S. officials not to embarrass him any further by having two Jews win gold in Berlin. Whether that's true or not, the Owens-led U.S. team rolled to victory in a world record time of 39.8 seconds and Owens' magical Olympics came to a close. While German officials denounced Owens, an overwhelming majority of the German fans treated him like a hero. In 1984, a street in Berlin was named in his honor. Source: Mike Morrison Added by: Kevin Rogers The Berlin Olympics of 1936 were held in Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, and Hitler's Nazi Party used the event as a soapbox to promulgate the theory of "Aryan" racial superiority. Hitler was spectacularly shown up by Jesse Owens and other African American athletes, members of a so-called "inferior" race. Despite the hostile atmosphere, Owens triumphed in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash and the broad jump. He replaced a Jewish-American member of the 400-meter relay team that went on to win the Gold Medal.

In three of his events, Owens -- who became the first American in the history of track and field to win four gold medals in a single Olympics, a feat not duplicated until 1984, when Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the Warsaw Pact nations-free 1984 Summer Olympics) -- established Olympic records. Although Hitler did not shake his hand, by the end of the games, the German fans cheered for him. In fact, in his 1970 autobiography "The Jesse Owens Story", Owens claimed that the Fuhrer himself waved to him. About | Jesse Owens About Jesse Owens Biography Jesse Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, achieved what no Olympian before him had accomplished. His stunning achievement of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin has made him the best remembered athlete in Olympic history. The seventh child of Henry and Emma Alexander Owens was named James Cleveland when he was born in Alabama on September 12, 1913. "J.C.", as he was called, was nine when the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where his new schoolteacher gave him the name that was to become known around the world.

The teacher was told "J.C." when she asked his name to enter in her roll book, but she thought he said "Jesse". The name stuck and he would be known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life. His promising athletic career began in 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio where he set Junior High School records by clearing 6 feet in the high jump, and leaping 22 feet 11 3/4 inches in the running broad jump, now known as the long jump. During his high school days, he won all of the major track events, including the Ohio state championship three consecutive years. At the National Interscholastic meet in Chicago, during his senior year, he set a new high school world record by running the 100 yard dash in 9.4 seconds to tie the accepted world record, and he created a new high school world record in the 220 yard dash by running the distance in 20.7 seconds. A week earlier he had set a new world record in the long jump by jumping 24 feet 11 3/4 inches. Owens' sensational high school track career resulted in him being recruited by dozens of colleges.

Owens chose the Ohio State University, even though OSU could not offer a track scholarship at the time. He worked a number of jobs to support himself and his young wife, Ruth. He worked as a night elevator operator, a waiter, he pumped gas, worked in the library stacks, and served a stint as a page in the Ohio Statehouse, all of this in between practice and record setting on the field in intercollegiate competition. Jesse gave the world a preview of things to come in Berlin, while at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor on May 25, 1935, he set three world records and tied a fourth, all in a span of about 45 minutes. Jesse was uncertain as to whether he would be able to participate at all, as he was suffering from a sore back as a result from a fall down a flight of stairs. He convinced his coach to allow him to run the 100-yard dash as a test for his back, and amazingly Jesse recorded an official time of 9.4 seconds, once again tying the world record. Despite the pain, he then went on to participate in three other events, setting a world record in each event.

In a span of 45 minutes, Jesse accomplished what many experts still feel is the greatest athletic feat in history...setting 3 world records and tying a fourth in four grueling track and field events. His success at the 1935 Big Ten Championships gave him the confidence that he was ready to excel at the highest level. Jesse entered the 1936 Olympics, which were held in Nazi Germany amidst the belief by Hitler that the Games would support his belief that the German "Aryan" people were the dominant race. Jesse had different plans, as he became the first American track & field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympiad. This remarkable achievement stood unequaled until the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, when American Carl Lewis matched Jesse's feat. Although others have gone on to win more gold medals than Jesse, he remains the best remembered Olympic athlete because he achieved what no Olympian before or since has accomplished. During a time of deep-rooted segregation, he not only discredited Hitler's master race theory, but also affirmed that individual excellence, rather than race or national origin, distinguishes one man from another.

Jesse Owens proved in Berlin and thereafter that he was a dreamer who could make the dreams of others come true, a speaker who could make the world listen and a man who held out hope to millions of young people. Throughout his life, he worked with youths, sharing of himself and the little material wealth that he had. In this way, Jesse Owens was equally the champion on the playground of the poorest neighborhoods as he was on the oval of the Olympic games. Athletes didn't return from the Olympics to lucrative advertising and product endorsement campaigns in those days, and Owens supported his young family with a variety of jobs. One was of special significance - playground director in Cleveland. It was his first step into a lifetime of working with underprivileged youth, which gave him his greatest satisfaction. After relocating to Chicago, he devoted much of his time to underprivileged youth as a board member and former director of the Chicago Boys' Club. Owens traveled widely in his post-Olympic days. He was an inspirational speaker, highly sought after to address youth groups, professional organizations, civic meetings, sports banquets, PTAs, church organizations, brotherhood and black history programs, as well as high school and college commencements and ceremonies.

He was also a public relations representative and consultant to many corporations, including Atlantic Richfield, Ford and the United States Olympic Committee. A complete list of the many awards and honors presented to Jesse Owens by groups around the world would fill dozens of pages. In 1976, Jesse was awarded the highest civilian honor in the United States when President Gerald Ford presented him with the Medal of Freedom in front of the members of the U.S. Montreal Olympic team in attendance. In February, 1979, he returned to the White House, where President Carter presented him with the Living Legend Award. On that occasion, President Carter said this about Jesse, "A young man who possibly didn't even realize the superb nature of his own capabilities went to the Olympics and performed in a way that I don't believe has ever been equaled since...and since this superb achievement, he has continued in his own dedicated but modest way to inspire others to reach for greatness". Jesse Owens died from complications due to lung cancer on March 31, 1980 in Tucson, Arizona.

Although words of sorrow, sympathy and admiration poured in from all over the world, perhaps President Carter said it best when he stated: "Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry. His personal triumphs as a world-class athlete and record holder were the prelude to a career devoted to helping others. His work with young athletes, as an unofficial ambassador overseas, and a spokesman for freedom are a rich legacy to his fellow Americans." Jesse's spirit still lives in his three daughters, Gloria, Marlene, and Beverly, and their work with the Jesse Owens Foundation. The Foundation continues to carry on Jesse's legacy by providing financial assistance, support, and services to young individuals with untapped potential in order to develop their talents, broaden their horizons, and become better citizens. There is no doubt that Jesse would be proud. Accomplishments & Awards Jesse set or tied national high school records in the 100 yard dash, 200-yard dash, and the long jump. After a stellar high school career, he attended Ohio State University.

On May 25, 1935, at the Big Ten Conference Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Owens broke three world records (long jump, 220-yard dash and 220-yard low hurdles) and tied a fourth (100-yard dash), all in a 45 minute span. In his junior year at Ohio State, Owens competed in 42 events and won them all, including four in the Big Ten Championships, four in the NCAA Championships, two in the AAU Championships and three at the Olympic Trials. In 1936, Jesse became the first American in Olympic Track and Field history to win four gold medals in a single Olympiad by winning four gold medals: 100 meter dash in 10.3 seconds (tying the world record), long jump with a jump of 26' 5 1/4" (Olympic record), 200 meter dash in 20.7 seconds (Olympic record), and 400 meter relay (first leg) in 39.8 seconds (Olympic and world record).

In 1976, Jesse was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award bestowed upon a civilian, by Gerald R. Ford. Owens was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush. © ESPN.com: Owens pierced a myth Owens pierced a myth By Larry Schwartz ESPN.com For most athletes, Jesse Owens' performance one spring afternoon in 1935 would be the accomplishment of a lifetime. In 45 minutes, he established three world records and tied another. Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics. But that was merely an appetizer for Owens. In one week in the summer of 1936, on the sacred soil of the Fatherland, the master athlete humiliated the master race. Owens' story is one of a high-profile sports star making a statement that transcended athletics, spilling over into the world of global politics. Berlin, on the verge of World War II, was bristling with Nazism, red-and-black swastikas flying everywhere. Brown-shirted Storm Troopers goose-stepped while Adolf Hitler postured, harangued, threatened.

A montage of evil was played over the chillingly familiar Nazi anthem: "Deutschland Uber Alles." This was the background for the 1936 Olympics. When Owens finished competing, the African-American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. He gave four virtuoso performances, winning gold medals in the 100- and 200- meter dashes, the long jump and on America's 4x100 relay team. Score it: Owens 4, Hitler 0. A remarkably even-keeled and magnanimous human being, Owens never rubbed it in. Just as sure as he knew fascism was evil, he also knew his country had a ways to go too in improving life for African-Americans. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens said. "I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either." Owens wasn't complaining. That wasn't his style.

He believed it was his job "to try to make things better." Born James Cleveland Owens on Sept. 12, 1913, in Oakville, Ala., he was often ill as a child, suffering from both chronic bronchial congestion and several bouts of pneumonia. Inadequate housing, food and clothing didn't help his health. By the age of seven he was expected to pick 100 pounds of cotton a day. At nine his family moved to Cleveland. When a teacher asked his name, he answered, "J.C.," which is what he was called. The teacher misunderstood his Southern drawl and the name was Jesse from then on. As a teenager he set or tied national high school records in the 100- and 220-yard dashes and the long jump (called the broad jump then). At Ohio State, he was not a good student but he was easily the swiftest on the track. Two weeks before the 1935 Big Ten Championships, Owens was involved in some playful hi-jinks with his roommates. But the prank backfired and he slipped on water during his getaway, severely injuring his tailbone.

On May 25 in Ann Arbor, Mich., Owens couldn't even bend over to touch his knees. But as the sophomore settled in for his first race, he said the pain "miraculously disappeared." 3:15 -- The "Buckeye Bullet" ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds to tie the world record. 3:25 -- In his only long jump, he leaped 26-8 1/4, a world record that would last 25 years. 3:34 -- His 20.3 seconds bettered the world record in the 220-yard dash. 4:00 -- With his 22.6 seconds in the 220-yard low hurdles, he became the first person to break 23 seconds in the event. Some credit Owens with setting five world records, saying he also beat the marks for the shorter 200 meters and 200-meter low hurdles. In his junior year at Ohio State, Owens competed in 42 events and won them all, including four in the Big Ten Championships, four in the NCAA Championships, two in the AAU Championships and three at the Olympic Trials.

In Germany, the Nazis portrayed African-Americans as inferior and ridiculed the United States for relying on "black auxiliaries." One German official even complained that the Americans were letting "non-humans, like Owens and other Negro athletes," compete. But the German people felt otherwise. Crowds of 110,000 cheered him in Berlin's glittering Olympic Stadium and his autograph or picture was sought as he walked the streets. On Aug. 3, the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Owens won his first final, taking the 100 meters in 10.3, edging out Ralph Metcalfe, also an African-American. The next day, Owens was almost out of the long jump shortly after qualifying began. He fouled on his first two jumps, though he was stunned when officials counted a practice run down the runway and into the pit as an attempt. With one jump remaining, Luz Long, a tall, blue-eyed, blond German long jumper who was his stiffest competition, introduced himself. He suggested that Owens make a mark several inches before the takeoff board and jump from there to play it safe. Owens took the advice, and qualified.

In the finals that afternoon, Long's fifth jump matched Owens' 25-10. But Owens leaped 26-3¾ on his next attempt and won the gold medal with a final jump of 26-5½. The first to congratulate the Olympic record holder was Long, who looked like the model Nazi but wasn't. "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler," Owens said. "You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II." Owens, though, would continue to correspond with Long's family. In the 200-meter dash on August 5, Owens won in an Olympic record of 20.7 seconds, beating out Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson. That was supposed to be the end of Owens' Olympic participation. But from out of the blue, Owens and Metcalfe replaced Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, the only Jews on the U.S.

track team, on the 4x100-meter relay. The rumor was that the Nazi hierarchy had asked U.S. officials not to humiliate Germany further by using two Jews to add to the gold medals the African-Americans already had won. Glickman blamed U.S. Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage for acquiescing to the Nazis. ZONE POLL On August 9, the 4x100 relay team, with Owens running leadoff, won by 15 yards and its world-record time of 39.8 seconds would last 20 years. Upon Owens' return to New York and a ticker-tape parade, he had to ride the freight elevator to a reception in his honor at the Waldorf-Astoria. He was treated as a kind of curiosity. When endorsements didn't come his way, he made money by, among other activities, running against horses and dogs. "People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?" Owens said.

"I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals." Not until the fifties did he achieve financial security, becoming a public speaker for corporations and opening a public-relations firm. In a 1950 Associated Press poll, he was voted the greatest track and field star for the first half of century, outpolling Jim Thorpe by almost three to one. In 1976, President Ford presented Owens with the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. can bestow upon a civilian. Owens, a-pack-a-day smoker for 35 years, died of lung cancer at age 66 on March 31, 1980 in Tucson, Ariz. Four years later, a street in Berlin was renamed in his honor. A decade after his death, President Bush posthumously awarded Owens the Congressional Medal of Honor. Bush called his victories in Berlin "an unrivaled athletic triumph, but more than that, a triumph for all humanity." Jesse Owens | 1936 Olympics Jesse Owens competes in the broad jump.

The 1936 Olympics After the end of the spring quarter at Ohio State, Owens traveled to the Olympic tryout finals in New York, where he won all three of his events. He and the 381 members of the U.S. Olympic Team then boarded the SS Manhattan on July 15 for its voyage to Europe. Along the way, Owens, who had been getting a significant amount of press for his track achievements, signed hundreds of autographs for fellow shipmates. After nine days of rough seas and stormy weather, the ship docked at the German port of Bremerhaven; the athletes were in Berlin enjoying the opening ceremonies barely a week later on August 1. Participating as a sprinter at the Olympic Summer Games of 1936 was a far different experience than it is today. There were no starting blocks, their shoes were made of heavy leather, and instead of running on a contemporary turf track, they sped down a course composed of cinder, which became uneven and messy when it rained. It was, in fact, raining intermittently during the first week of Olympiad XI, yet Owens won four Olympic gold medals.

Along the way, he tied the world record of 10.3 seconds in the 100-meter dash; set new Olympic records of 20.7 seconds in the 200-meter race, and 26 feet, 5 1/4 inches in the long jump; and he ran the first leg in the finals of the 400-meter relay, an event in which his team set a new world and Olympic record of 39.8 seconds. His triumphs before a worldwide audience were serendipitous; Germany's leader, Adolf Hitler, who had been widely condemned before the Games for his anti-Semitic policies, openly anticipated a great showing of Aryan athletic supremacy. With his victories in track and field, Owens had proved the Nazi dictator's racist theories wrong, and in doing so, had become not only an Olympic gold medal winner but an American hero. For more information on Owens' Story please see these sources . Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Updated 6:35 AM ET, Thu August 4, 2016 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend U.S.

track star Jesse Owens stands atop the medal stand after he won the long jump at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. It was one of four gold medals that Owens won at the Berlin Games, which took place during the rule of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hitler wanted the Games to showcase what he believed to be the racial superiority of white Aryan athletes, but Owens spoiled that idea and became a cultural icon. Hide Caption 1 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens wins a 100-meter race in high school in June 1932. Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of slaves, was born in Alabama in 1913. His family moved to Cleveland when he was a child, and he went on to attend the Ohio State University. Hide Caption 2 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens poses in his Ohio State track jersey in April 1935. His full name was James Cleveland (J.C.) Owens. He got the nickname Jesse from his first schoolteacher in Cleveland. She misunderstood Owens when he said J.C., and she put his name down as Jesse.

Hide Caption 3 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens had perhaps the greatest single day in track-and-field history on May 25, 1935. During a college meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the "Buckeye Bullet" broke three world records and tied a fourth -- all within a 45-minute span. Hide Caption Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens married Minnie Ruth Solomon in July 1935. Hide Caption 5 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens fills up a car with gas in July 1935. He worked as a gas-station attendant to help pay for his college. Hide Caption 6 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens practices the long jump on a boat as he travels to Berlin for the Olympics in 1936. Hide Caption 7 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens, far right, begins a race at the Berlin Games. The 22-year-old won gold medals in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the 4x100 relay and the long jump.

Hide Caption 8 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens crosses the finish line to win the 100 meters in 10.3 seconds. It tied an Olympic record. Hide Caption Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens is interviewed by reporters in Berlin. Hide Caption Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens takes part in a long-jump event in London in August 1936. Hide Caption Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens signs autographs for fans in London. Hide Caption 12 of 15 Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens dashes for a train at London's Waterloo station before heading back to the United States. Hide Caption Photos: Jesse Owens: Olympic legend Owens takes part in a ticker-tape parade in New York in September 1936. Hide Caption Jesse Owens's Inspiring History play At the Berlin 1936 Olympics, Hitler planned to show the world that the Aryan people were the dominant race, Jesse Owens proved him wrong and sealed his place in Olympic history by becoming the most successful athlete of the 1936 Games.

Owens also became the first american to win four track and field gold medals at a single Olympics (100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump), a record that stood unbroken for 48 years. Jesse Owens (USA) - Athletics - Berlin 1936 100m, Athletics, Berlin 1936, long jump, OWENS, Jesse, United States of America, Men, Jesse Owens - Olympics Topics - ESPN Personal Jesse Owens was a track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Owens, a standout at The Ohio State University, won eight individual NCAA championships with the Buckeyes. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter awarded Owens with the Medal of Freedom and Living Legend Award for his achievement in the Berlin Olympics. Owens died on Mar. 31, 1980 from complications due to lung cancer. James Cleveland Owens was born on Sept. 12, 1913 in Oakville, Ala. to Henry and Emma Owens. Nicknamed "J.C.," Owens was the seventh out of 11 children.

Owens had health issue as a young child, suffering from chronic bronchial congestion and pneumonia. Owens' family moved to Cleveland when he was nine and started going by "Jessie" after his teacher misunderstood his Southern drawl. Owens started running track and field at Fairmount junior high school. At East Technical High School, Owens set or tied national high school records in the 100 and 220-yard dashes and the long jump at the 1933 National Interscholastic Championships in Chicago. The Ohio State University Jesse Owens attended The Ohio State University in 1934. Owens wasn't offered a track scholarship so he worked in order to pay for school and lived off campus with other African-American athletes. As a member of the Buckeyes track team, Owens earned the nickname "Buckeye Bullet." Between 1935-1936, Owens won eight individual NCAA championships at Ohio State and all 42 events he competed in during his junior season. Two weeks before competing in the Big Ten Championships, Owens injured his tailbone after he was involved in a prank with his roommates.

On the day of the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich., Owens was in so much pain that he couldn't bend over to touch his knees. But over a span of 45 minutes, Owens' pain went away, setting world records in the long jump (26-8 ï¿½), 220-yard dash (20.3 seconds), and in the 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds). He also tied the record in the 100-yard dash, winning the race in 9.4 seconds. Jesse Owens qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He faced a lot of adversity from German leader Adolf Hitler, but was popular with the German fans who came to see him at Olympic Stadium. On Aug. 3, 1936, Owens beat out Ralph Metcalfe, a fellow African-American, for the gold medal in the 100 meters with a time of 10.3 seconds. The following day in the long jump, Owens almost didn't qualify for the finals. After fouling his first two jumps and getting credited for a practice run, Owens listened to the advice from Luz Long, his competition in the event.

Long suggested that Owens make a mark several inches before the takeoff board to prevent him from fouling a third time. Owens took his advice and qualified for the finals that afternoon. In the finals, Long and Owens were tied with jumps of 25 feet, 10 inches after their fifth attempts. But with jumps of 26-3ï¿½ and 26-5ï¿½, Owens won the gold medal. On Aug. 5, 1936, Owens defeated Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson, in the 200 meters, winning the gold medal with an Olympic-record time of 20.7 seconds. Owens was a late addition to the 4X100 meter relay team along with Metcalfe after Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller pulled out. He was the lead runner in the race, as the United States won by 15 yards and set a world-record time of 39.8 seconds for his fourth gold medal of the Olympics. Owens made history by becoming the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympiad. However, Owens returned home to face segregation and racism.

At a reception in his honor, Owens was forced to ride the freight elevator. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman failed to acknowledge Owens' accomplishments. It wasn't until 1955 that President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the State Department acknowledged Owens by naming him an "Ambassador of Sports." Jesse Owens wasn't able to land the lucrative endorsement deals following his success in the Olympics. He held a variety of jobs in order to support his family, including serving as a playground director in Cleveland. After Owens moved to Chicago, he served as a board member and director of the Chicago Boys Club. One of the odder jobs Owens had was competing against animals, including horses and dogs. With money becoming tighter, Owens ran a dry-cleaning business and worked at a gas station before filing for bankruptcy in 1966. Later in life, Owens traveled the world as an inspirational speaker and was a public relations consultant for Ford and the United States Olympic Committee. In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded Jesse Owens with the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Owens returned to the White House in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter presented him with the Living Legend Award. Owens was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1990 by George H.W. Bush. Following his death in 1980, USA Track and Field created the Jesse Owens Award in 1981 for the top track and field athlete in the country. The United States Postal Service has issued two stamps in Owens' honor, in 1990 and 1998. The Ohio State University opened Jessie Owens Memorial Stadium in 2001. Jesse Owens married Ruth Solomon, his high school sweetheart, in 1935. The couple had three daughters, Gloria, Marlene and Beverly. Owens passed away on Mar. 31, 1980, from complications due to lung cancer. Ruth passed away in 2001. VIDEO RESULTS FOR JESSE OWENS 50 stunning Olympic moments No6: Jesse Owens's four gold medals | John Ashdown | Sport | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Wednesday, 29 July 1936.

It is three days before the start of the Olympic Games and the athletes are arriving at the Olympic village in Berlin. The practice track is a hive of activity – the giant Akilles Jarvinen of Finland sends the discus dizzying distances with nothing more than a flick, then signs autographs between throws. Luigi Beccali, the Italian middle-distance runner, pelts quick laps and has to scream to shift the crowds gathered around the American hurdler Forrest Towns. Why Olympians shine under the spotlight Read more Over at the long jump pit photographers surround the talk of the Games. Jesse Owens is the world record holder in three events – the 100m, the 200m and the long jump – and favourite for gold. Given the political maelstrom surrounding the Games, the eyes of the world are trained on the modest and charming 22-year-old from Alabama. One of the photographers asks for an action shot. Owens is happy to oblige. He thunders up to the line and casually leaps out. The photographers take their snaps and smile. Climbing out of the sand Owens glares at the holes he has created. He has jumped 25ft 6in.

The distance would be enough to win bronze in the final six days later. It is an astonishing little vignette, witnessed by the Guardian’s EA Montague, and it is worth dwelling on the astonishing sporting feats of Owens, because they are so often smothered by the political import attached to them. Owens enjoyed seven days at the Berlin Games the like of which had never been seen before and have been matched only once since – by Carl Lewis on home soil in Los Angeles in 1984. The longevity of his achievements in the German capital was astonishing. No American athlete captured the imagination like Owens until Lewis emerged nearly 50 years later. It is arguable that no single athlete has ever owned an Olympic Games in the way that the 1936 Games are Owens’s Games. His road to Berlin had been a tough one. He was the son of a sharecropperand grandson of a slave, spending much of his early childhood working in the cotton fields and shoe-shining in Danville, Alabama.

His track and field achievements at Fairmount junior high – he won 75 of the 79 events he entered – in 1933 earned him a scholarship at Ohio State, where he mixed studies with 5pm-1am shifts working in an elevator at an office building. Two years later, in 1935, he came to worldwide attention, with a set of times and distances that, athletically, eclipsed his efforts a year later. At the Big Ten Championships he ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4sec to equal the world record, smashed the long jump world record with a leap of 26ft 8¼in (8.13m, a mark that would stand for more than 25 years), set a new world record in the 220-yard dash and another in 220-yard hurdles. By the summer of 1936 his sheen of invincibility had faded somewhat – he was beaten by Eulace Peacock over 100 yards in warm-ups for the Games only for his US team-mate to be ruled out with a hamstring injury.

But on 3 August 1936 there was only ever going to be one winner. Owens cruised through the rounds – he equalled the Olympic record in the heats, broke it (with wind assistance) in the quarters and ran his slowest time when winning the semi-final. In the final, Germany’s great hope Erich Borchmeyer was beaten into fifth as Owens tore his way to 100m gold. The following day came the long jump and Owens was unexpectedly in trouble. In the morning qualifying session he had two foul jumps, leaving him with one chance to record the necessary distance of 7.15m, usually comfortably within his range. Then Luz Long, Germany’s great hope, the embodiment of the Aryan ideal and Owens’s chief rival for gold, introduced himself to the American and recommended he set his runup marker back a foot or so in order to be sure of recording a legal jump. Owens did so and sailed into the final. In the final Owens took an early lead with a jump of 7.74m but Long went ahead in the penultimate round, leaping out to 7.87m.

Owens responded in sensational style with 7.94m in the fifth and 8.06m in the sixth and final round. Luz was the first to congratulate him and they took a lap of honour around the stadium together as the crowd rose to salute them both. “It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler,” said Owens later. “You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be a plating on the 24-carat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment.” There was no such drama the following day in the 200m, Owens cruising into the lead round the bend and winning by four yards in 20.7sec, an Olympic record, but there was drama of a different kind in the relay. This took place four days later and Owens was always likely to add a fourth gold to his collection, the US having won every Olympic 4x100m since 1920.

Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, the silver medal winner in the 100m, were due to run in the final but, as is usual in the relays, the backups were in the lineup for the heats. Any athlete who ran in qualifying was eligible for a medal. Yet Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were dropped by US team officials at the last minute and Owens and Metcalfe ran the heats in their place. Glickman and Stoller were Jewish … Which leads us, inexorably, on to the politics. There are many myths around Owens and the 1936 Games. Was Hitler so enraged by Owens’s long jump win that he stormed out of the stadium? Did the Führer refuse to hand over the gold to the American after the 100m? Possibly, and no, seem to be the answers (although Hitler did snub another black American, Cornelius Johnson, the winner of the high jump). Those questions add to the mystique of the Games but miss the point somewhat. The standard interpretation of Owens’s success is that it proved the Nazi idea of Aryan racial superiority was a nonsense.

But Hitler, though irked, was dismissive of the triumphs of the African-Americans at the Games – of course they won golds, he told aides, because they were essentially animals, physically stronger than the “civilised whites”. They simply needed to be banned from future competitions. Owens had spent the Games being mobbed in the streets by German fans and stayed in the same hotel as white athletes throughout, a privilege he was denied in the US. On his triumphant return to the States, Owens was thrown a tickertape parade. That evening a reception was held in his honour at the Waldorf hotel in New York. As a black man, Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator. “When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus,” he said later. “I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the president either.” Roosevelt did not even send Owens a telegram.

Within six months Owens turned professional, essentially ending his career as it disqualified him under the rules of the Amateur Athletics Union. He had been generous with the initial post-Games windfall, buying a house for his parents and a car for his old coach, but soon found himself struggling for cash. He became something of circus sideshow, racing against horses and greyhounds. It was not until the 1950s that Owens found financial security as a speaker and ambassador for various companies. “People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse,” he said. “But what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals – but you can’t eat gold medals.” Eventually Owens was recognised as the inspirational figure he is. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1976, the highest civilian honour in the US, and deservedly so – an African-American had entered the nest of the Nazis and emerged with four gold medals hanging around his neck. He blazed the trail that Lewis and others have since dashed along at ever increasing speeds. What the Guardian said: 4 August 1936 It need hardly be said that Jesse Owens won the 100 metres. J.

Pennington, running not so well as yesterday, had finished sixth in one semi-final and A. Sweeney fifth in the other, a very close race in which he was less than a yard behind the third man. Ten to watch: meet Team GB's sporting superheroes Read more In the final Metcalfe and Wykoff were fastest away, but by half-distance Owens was clear, and he never looked like being caught. Of the Europeans Borchmeyer (Germany) and Lennart Strandberg (Sweden) were never seriously in the race. Strandberg pulled a muscle near the finish. But Martinus Osendarp (Holland) ran with great determination, made up ground all through the second half of the race and caught Frank Wykoff near the tape. The world’s record which Owens made yesterday had not been allowed owing to the fact that he had the wind behind him, and he was helped to some extent by the wind today, but this does not alter the fact that he is beyond question the greatest sprinter of modern times – not merely the fastest but incomparably the most beautiful. There never was a runner who showed so little sign of effort. He seemed to float along the track like water.

The Berlin crowd is enraptured with him, and his name is cheered as soon as it is announced before a race, and when he has finished and is walking back to the dressing-room he is continually stopped on the way by spectators who want to photograph him. It must be added that he bears his honours with a most complete and courteous modesty. What Jesse Owens said “I saw the finish line and knew that 10 seconds would climax the work of eight years. One mistake could ruin those eight years. So, why worry about Hitler?” What Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, said “Each of the German victories, and there were a surprising number of these, made [Hitler] happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvellous coloured American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilised whites and hence should be excluded from future Games.”

Question: In which year did US athlete Jesse Owens win four Olympic gold medals?
Answer: 1936