Great Olympic moments - Jesse Owens

Ebony, Oct, 1991

IN what has been hailed as the greatest Olympic moment of all times, a 22-year-old ohio State sophomore by the name of Jesse Owens took on the vaunted athletes of Adolf Hitler's racist Germany and demolished them, one by one, in four major track and field events. Adding insult to injury, the fleet-footed American accomplished his history-making feats on Hitler's own turf, the Olympic Stadium in the Nazi capital of Berlin, and with the dictator looking on.

Thus, in an ironic twist, the stadium which the Fuehrer had especially built as a world forum for the showcasing of Aryans' athletic supremacy, became the stage for a Black superman's triumphs. In an electrifying 100-meter dash, Owens tied the world record of 10.3 seconds, relegating his Black teammate Ralph Metcalfe to second place. In the 200-meter event, he defeated another fellow-American, Mathew Robinson (brother of baseball great Jackie) in 20.7 seconds. In the broad jump, Owens soared to a distance of 26 feet, 55/16 inches, thereby defeating Germany's favorite Lutz Long and becoming the first Olympian to reach and surpass the 26-foot mark. Finally, as the lead-off man in the 400-meter relay event, he helped his teammates to victory and himself to his fourth and final gold medal.

Forgetting their dictator and his racist doctrines for a moment, thousands of German sports fans cheered ecstatically as a beaming Owens, who suddenly had emerged as the undisputed hero of the 1936 Olympic Games, again and again ascended the victor's stand to receive his unprecedented four gold medals.

Since those memorable events more than half a century ago, the Olympic victories of Jesse Owens (who died in 1980 at age 67) have not only been hailed as outstanding athletic accomplishments but also as triumphs of decency over tyranny and bigotry.