He participated in the Big Ten Track event in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1935, where he set three world records and tied for another – all within the course of 45 minutes. This feat of his has never ever been equaled and has been dubbed as the greatest-ever 45 minutes in sports history. The next year he struck 4 golds at Berlin
Perhaps Black American athlete Jesse Owens will ever remain the world’s greatest sporting legend, the star of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, who became a sensation that year by winning 4 gold medals – 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4×100-meter relay. At that time, he was credited with “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.” And yet, on his return home, he wasn’t invited to the White House for a congratulatory handshake from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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Throughout his lifetime, Owens greatest adversary was racial discrimination as an African-American, a man whose grandfather was a Negro slave. But he stoically faced the challenge together with all its slings and arrows, with his sporting good humour and fortitude. Indeed, you might say this was his lifelong race against racism.
It would take almost 50 years for a Black fellow American to equal Owens’ historic record. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic, another legend was born – Carl Lewis. He won four golds in the very same four events as Owens. Subsequently, he won a total of 10 medals across four Olympic events. Nine of these were gold. But his Los Angeles gold haul lacked the aura or the euphoria that settles around a legend like an invisible mantle. Perhaps you can’t see it but you can always feel it. And then, nothing can match the jubilation when it happens the first time. That glory is Jesse Owens and his alone.
Born on September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama (USA), Owens was the youngest of 10 children – three girls and seven boys. His father, Cleveland Owens was a sharecropper and his mother, Mary Fitzerald had her hands full with ten kids. As a result, poverty was always staring the Owens family right in the face. When he was 9, Jesse together with the rest of the family moved to Cleaveland, Ohio, in search of better opportunities.
His fame and athletic prowess preceded him at Berlin. When the American contingent arrived in Berlin, everywhere there were milling crowds chanting “Where is Owens; where is Owens”. A legend had already been born.
It was here that Owens discovered his passion for sprinting. A year before his epoch-making performance in Berlin, He participated in the Big Ten Track event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set three world records and tied for another – all within the course of 45 minutes.
This feat of his has never ever been equaled and it has been dubbed as the greatest-ever 45 minutes in sports history.
His fame and athletic prowess preceded him at Berlin. When the American contingent arrived in Berlin, everywhere there were milling crowds chanting “Where is Owen; where is Owens”. A legend had already been born.
Just before the competitions began, Adidas sportswear founder Adi Dassler visited Owens at the Olympic village and requested him to wear the company’s Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes. This was the first sponsorship for a male African American athlete.
At the Olympics, history was actually made on two fronts. The 4-medal gold haul earned him global recognition and fame.
The press around the world and in the United States, went wild with jubilation and tried to outdo each in singing his praises. But in Berlin another drama that was unfolding against the backdrop of the Games, made headline news all over the world.
Adolf Hitler deliberately made it a point to shake hands only with the German victors and leave the stadium. The International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour insisted that Hitler must greet every medalist or none at all. This only made Hitler all the more adamant. After that he got the better of the situation and skipped all other medal presentations. Hitler was subsequently accused of failing to acknowledge Owens (who won gold medals on August 3, 4 (two), and 9) or shake his hand.
Years later back home in America, addressing an audience of African Americans at a Republican rally in Kansas City, Owens said: “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”
On his return to his homeland, Despite all the euphoria and adulation and the hero’s welcome he received from the public, Owens’ had to face the bitter truth that now he had to get back to the business of daily life and living. He had difficulty finding work and had to take on menial jobs like a gas station attendant, playground janitor, and manager of a dry cleaning firm. He also raced against amateurs and horses for cash.
The dormitory that Owens occupied during the Berlin Olympics has been fully restored into a living museum, with pictures of his accomplishments at the games.
Owens died on March 31, 1980, of lung cancer aged 66, in Tucson, Arizona. But his legend will live on forever.