Athlete Jesse Owens at the Olympic Games 1936 angry Adolf Hitler (story)
From the book of Anton Zerer’s game and dreams
On Monday, March 31, we commemorate the 45th anniversary of the death of Jesse Owens.
BRATISLAVA. When the little Owens sat in the school desks, the teacher was curious about his name.
A black boy with an Alabam accent was decisived by James Cleveland as « Jese« . and not the literary « Jejsi« .
Since then, this garbled name has been carried with a poor boy from the family of cotton combing (he came from a family of eleven children and ten sisters around him).
« Even after a good crop we were not saturated,« He remembered youth.
« I actually reelered my whole childhood. One year we attacked cotton malicious insects and destroyed everything. There was nothing left for the livelihood, we almost died of hunger. We sold everything we had and went to look for luck north. My sister Lillimay lived in Cleveland. There his father got a job, working in a mine on iron ore.«
Jesse Owens entered the history of Queen Sport with two unique performances.
First, as the winner of the Berlin Olympics 1936 in four disciplines (100 m, 200 ma 4×100 m, distance), which was repeated only by Carl Lewis in 1984, as an athlete, which on Saturday afternoon 25 May 1935 in Michigan in Michigan y through obstacles, distance) and one equalized (100 y).
True, the metric double -ties on a straight track did not run, but as it was almost the same distances (220 yards is 1.168 meters longer track than 200 m), killed two flies with one shot: one run made two records.
Sacred soil of athletics
The Ferry Field stadium in Ann Arbore, which lies about an hour by car west of Detroit, became the sacred soil of athletics.
On that Memorial Day at the Big Ten event (the competition of ten large universities of the Middle -West US) was the sunny weather. Ideal conditions for great performances. Only yard distances were running.
Video: Jessie Owens and his story
Young Owens did not feel quite fit. When a student from the Ohio State University in Columbus, financing his studies from the earnings of the hotel servant, liftboy and pump, went down the stairs, badly stepped down.
Nothing serious, but something was ruined in his ankle. He crawled into a hemperial barrel to heal as quickly as possible, and then the knees begged coach Larry Snyder to let him start.
Michigan Gymnasist Tom Harmon described in 1980 in the Los Angeles Times atmosphere at the stadium as « unprecedented enthusiasm« .
« After every Owens discipline we chanted several times: Record! It was an incredible crescendo.«
How did this commemorative day record history?
15:15: He won the 100 yards with a predominance at 9.4 seconds. If someone was breathing more on his back, he would also push a time of 9.0.
15:25: There was one attempt (813 cm) in the distance. He was the first athlete to skip eight meters and improve the world record by 16 centimeters. He lasted a quarter of a century and three months. It was overcome by Ralph Boston 12th August 1960.
15:34: In the 220 yard (200 m) running, he improved a 20.3 s record by 0.3 s (up to fourteen years).
16:00: Running to 220 yards through obstacles (200 m equivalent) no longer features in a classic athletic program. Low obstacles ran in 22.6 seconds (two stopwatch stopped at 22.4).
The title of the fastest man did not want to admit to him
The next day the newspaper registered a record package. However, no Owens’ quote appeared. Only later did many dawn what « made« .
Larry Snyder, who brought him to Michigan on the rear seat of the convertible, wipped his eyes:
« Jesse seemed to float on this track. He just stroked the cushion. The body from the hips up practically did not move during the run. He could easily balance with a full cup of coffee on his head and would not spill a drop.«
Video: Jessie Owens on the Olympic Games 1936
In the 1936 Olympic year he walked from victory to victory. By the way, he knew the loss in his career only in five fights.
As an invitation to Berlin, he sent a world record to 100 meters, which set on June 20 at the University Championship in Chicago – 10.2 s. For a long time, however, he did not want to admit the title of the fastest man of the planet.
The official recognition came after obstructions only in 1938, when he was already far beyond amateur water. The record lasted twenty years! Williams (10.1 s) at the Melbourne Olympics 1956 ran faster.
The Germans were excited
The Germans accepted Owensa enthusiastically: 110,000 spectators on the stands applauded each of his runs and jumps. His autograph was worth gold.
They did not take into account that he buried the theory of superiority of the Aryan race. Although the Nazi daily Völkische Beobachter still warned on June 1, 1933, « Niggers have nothing to look for at the Olympics … »
Well, and this black cotton collector, which in seven years, when the stalks were higher than him, combed 50 pounds a day, turned the planned celebration of Nazism into Jesse’s Owens!
Neither the rumored director and propagandist leader Leni Reifenstahlová prevented Hitler overshadowing Hitler in the film The God of the Stadium Owens.
On the theme of Owens – Hitler, all sorts of stories were treated. He said he ignored him. Jesse in the book Jesse Owens Story (1970) introduced everything to the right:
« When I went under the grandstand, the office got up, waved me and I returned the waving. I think journalists showed bad taste when they criticized the German man.«
A distance collided with him with a two hundred
He swallowed four gold with start -ups in eight days (from 2 to 9 August). On a cinder mixed with ground fragments of ceramic glass won first on 4 August a hundred in 10.3 seconds.
A day later it was distance, and it collides with the semifinals at 200 m. It was a drama, but not with the expected racist charge.
Owens and against it blue -eyed and light -haired German Luz Long from Leipzig, reminiscent of the Aryan type model.
Owens missed the distance warm -up, did not attend any test leap and in the qualifying (limit 715 cm) was worried. He had the first two attempts invalid and before the last he was in danger of not going to advance.
« You jump with your eyes closed, » Luz encouraged him. Jesse finally advanced. In the finals after his fifth attempt led Luz. Both of them jumped as well (787 cm), but the German had a better second attempt.
« When I was preparing for the fifth attempt that came out as winning me, Luz advised me to extend the start. It was a golden advice. »
Fifth Owens’s attempt measured 794 cm, six even 806 cm. This performance would win the Olympic distance in London 1948, Helsinki 1952, Melbourne 1956, the third would end up in Rome 1960, the second in Tokyo 1964, the third in Munich 1972 and in Montreal 1976!
To the relay did not count with him
After the third triumph on the two hundred, his program was fulfilled. They did not count on the 4×100 MS relay. Coach Lawson Robertson commented on this tendency:
« Owens has already received quite fame and has collected many medals. We want to give a chance to others to know what it is like to be on the podium.«
Only in the morning before the final there was a change: the first two sections were included in the two fastest of a hundred. Coincidentally, Stolter and Glickman, the only two Jews …
The relay, which was launched by Owens, ran the first under 40 seconds. The world record of 39.8 lasted twenty years!
Owens’s performance overtaken the time. He ended up at the best age, still in bloom – he was not even 23 years in the Berlin Olympics …
Couldn’t sit on the bus
On the New York Aleji Broadway, he was waiting for a ride in an open convertible, a confetti celebration, thousands of congratulators.
But US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not thank him or accepted him in the White House not to lose points in the upcoming elections, especially in the south.
« When I returned to my native country after all those stories with Hitler, I wasn’t allowed to sit on the bus in front, but I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live as I wanted. They didn’t invite me to shake my hand with Hitler, but they didn’t even invite me to the White House to shake my hand with the president.«
The American Olympic Committee has also been preserved by the Macošsky – Sullivan prize for the best American athlete in 1936 the Olympic champion in Ten Glenn Morris.
Jesse then ironically remarked that Hitler at least waved him …
« People I didn’t know flooded me with invitations to my luxury villas and asked me to sailing with them on their yachts. But no one offered me a job.«
Had a trick to overtake a horse
« Jesse was woefully poor, so I advised him to leave his studies and run for faster money, » He admitted coach Snyder.
Although he refused at first, they broke him. He ran a hundred yards against the horses and – won. He revealed the trick himself.
His rivals were the inflective thoroughbreds, whose shot scared so much that they did not know at the first moment where to run and until they recovered, Jesse gained a decisive lead.
« The secret was the grandeur of horses, otherwise they are the most nervous animals. It was enough to get as much rifle as possible and shoot close to them. While the jockey was calm down, I had fifty yards behind me.«
Five cents from each dollar paid by viewers, the performance three times a week to feed his wife (married almost with school love Ruth) and three daughters.
« People claimed it was humiliating for the Olympic champion. What was I supposed to do? I had four gold, but you don’t like the medals.«
Competed for money everywhere and with everyone
He became a showman. He drummed, stepped, conducted, wandered around the cities with Indianapolis CLOWS basketball (later also collaborated with Harlem Globetrotters) and included his running nipples with the fastest youngsters from the surroundings, giving a lead of 10-20 yards.
« I became a clown. I competed for money everywhere and with everyone. Even with dogs and even with kangaroos.«
Later he went bankrupt as an entrepreneur. However, he took on as a popular jazz moderator on the radio, set up an advertising agency, became a sought -after speaker at the ceremonial events.
His collaborators said he was the fastest person of the planet. He miraculously pursued everything. And you put it on a very much …
« I have always loved running,« He confessed. “It was something you could do by yourself. You could choose any direction, speed, fight the wind and felt like him. You have tracked down new views with the power of your feet and the courage of your lungs.«
It was this body that betrayed it. A tough smoker (at least a box of cigarettes daily, 35 years …) died at the age of 66. Even the fastest lungs caught up with cancer …
