Jesse Owens: The Superior Sprinter

The performance of Jesse Owens at the Berlin Games is well known and rightfully acclaimed. He not only dominated the sprint competition, garnering three gold medals (he won a fourth in the long jump) and earning the title of “fastest man in the world,” but he also was credited with punching a hole in Nazi theories of racial superiority. Yet Owens’s experience in Berlin was quite different from the stories reported in many papers.

One popular tale that arose from Owens’s victories was that of the “snub.” On the first day of competition, Adolf Hitler publicly congratulated a few German and Finnish winners. He left the stadium, however, after the German competitors were eliminated from the day’s final event. The International Olympic Committee president, Henri de Baillet-Latour, angry at Hitler’s actions, told him to congratulate all or none of the victors. Hitler chose to no longer publicly congratulate anyone (though he did have private meetings with German medalists). On the second day of competition, Owens won the gold medal in the 100 metres but did not receive a handshake from Hitler. American papers, unaware of Hitler’s deal with the IOC, printed the story that Hitler had “snubbed” Owens, who was African American. Over the following years the myth of Hitler’s snub grew and grew.

Despite the politically charged atmosphere of the Games, Owens was adored by the German public, who screamed his name and hounded him for photos and autographs. The friendship that many Germans felt for him was most evident during the long jump. Accustomed to U.S. competitions that allowed practice jumps, he took a preliminary jump and was astonished when the officials counted it as his first attempt. Unsettled, he foot-faulted the second attempt. Before his last jump, German competitor Carl Ludwig (“Luz”) Long approached Owens. Popular accounts suggest that Long told Owens to place a towel several inches in front of the takeoff board. With Owens’s jumping ability, Long felt this maneuver would allow him to safely qualify for the finals. Owens used the towel, qualified, and eventually sailed 26 feet 81/4 inches (8.134 metres) to beat Long for the gold. The two men became close friends.

Owens’s last gold medal came in the 400-metre relay, an event he had never expected to run. The U.S. coaches replaced Jewish team members Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, spurring rumours of anti-Semitism. Despite the controversy, the team set the Olympic record with a time of 39.8 seconds.