When Jesse Owens, considered one of the best ever athletes in the world, won a record four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, it became a part of sports folklore. Owens, aged 22 then, shattered Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy by equalling the world record (10.3 seconds) in 100 metres and breaking the world marks in 200 metres (20.7s) and the long jump (8.07m). He also won (along with Ralph Metcalfe and others) the 400m relay. Owen’s records lasted mor e than 20 years. For someone, who at the age of seven was expected to pick 100 pounds of cotton each day and who suffered from chronic bronchial congestion and several bouts of pneumonia, besides overcoming inadequate housing, food and clothing, Owens clearly redefined levels of excellence on the biggest stage.
He lamented later: “When I came back to my native country, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus.”
Owens, the last of 10 children of an Alabama sharecropper, 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 was referring to the widespread racial prejudice that existed in the United States then. He and his wife were refused service in New York hotels. The Hotel Pennsylvania finally gave them rooms on the condition they used the servants’ entrance. At the Berlin Olympics Owens also met sportspersons who displayed the right spirit. After he had fouled his initial attempts, Luz Long, the blond German long jumper, who was also a major contender for the gold medal, suggested to Owens that he jump from several inches behind the takeoff board in order to play it safe.
Owens took his advice and qualified. And when he pipped the German to win the long jump gold with an effort of 26ft. 5 ½ in., Luz Long was the first to congratulate the champion. In a 1950 Associated Press poll, Owens was voted the greatest track and field star of the first half of the century. A chain smoker for 35 years, Owens died of lung cancer at age 66, on March 31, 1980.
V. V. Subrahmanyam
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