On the one hand, an overflowing power, steeped in pomp and megalomania , the desire to show everyone the supremacy of the Aryan race and Nazi Germany . On the other, a 23-year-old black boy from a poor South American family during the difficult years of the US depression.
Still, on the one hand Adolf Hitler who wants to exploit the echo of a magnificent sporting event like the Olympics to make propaganda , on the other hand the boy who eclipses the Fuhrer in that instant and who will bind his name forever to sport and to the narration of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin .
Jesse Owens, the American sprinter and long-distance runner who came from Alabama, capable of winning four gold medals in the same edition of the Olympic Games . No one like him in track and field. A record only equaled by fellow countryman Carl Lewis at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
Seventh of ten children of a farmer, born on 12 September 1913, his real name was James Cleveland : he called himself JC which if read in English has the sound “Geisi” . From here Jesse the step is short also because because of his strong accent, at school the teacher led Jesse and they all began to call him that.
The bond that binds the American athlete to the Berlin Olympics is strong, visceral and carries with it many other stories that frame the difficult undertaking of this boy. On 3 August he won the 100 meters, on 4 August the long jump, on 5 August the 200 meters and on 9 August the 4 × 100 relay . Owens, sated with success and not knowing that he was close to setting a historical record, said to give up the relay to give way to reserves which, according to him, deserved some space and glory . “Never,” said the executives who pushed to see him compete.
Much has been said about Hitler’s greeting-non-greeting to the American racer: he himself has denied ita fictional quest that saw the German dictator leave the stadium early so as not to have to shake hands with the black boy. In reality this did not happen. But he was a homeless hero : Owens, returning to America, did not receive the homage of President Roosevelt , at a time when racial segregation was in force at a time of full electoral campaign.
But Jesse Owens was so much more, even before the Olympics . And if the Berlin enterprise is unrepeatable and immortal, that of May 25, 1935 is truly titanic. Within 45 minutes , at the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jesse set three world records, equaling a fourth.: long jump measuring 8.13 meters, 220 flat straight yards (20 ″ 3), 220 straight obstacle yards (22 ″ 6, first man to drop below 23 ″), and equal to 100 yards yards (9 ″ 4). But that’s not all: he also made records of 100 and 220 yards, but those are American distances that are not run in the Olympics.
The greatest 45 minutes in the history of sport . A record every 10 minutes on average. Sport Illustrated, ironically, wrote :
To find such a scale of success, one has to travel the field of art and think of Mozart who in just six weeks composed his last three symphonies in the summer of 1788 or of Shakespeare who wrote “Enrico V ”,“ Giulio Cesare ”and“ As you like it ”in the same year
It’s not a legend, it’s all true. But that’s not all: five days before the competition, Owens fell down the stairs of his dorm at Ohio State University. And on the same morning of May 25th, the situation did not improve: according to the documents of the time, his teammates helped him to get out of the team car and, once he arrived at the stadium, the Alabama boy couldn’t even bend over .
Then he took a hot bath for half an hour and ran towards triumph and history …
