Nazi Olympics 1936: Jesse Owens

From ESPN , "Owens pierced a myth," by Larry Schwartz of ESPN.com-- For most athletes, Jesse Owens' performance one spring afternoon in 1935 would be the accomplishment of a lifetime. In 45 minutes, he established three world records and tied another.

Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics.

But that was merely an appetizer for Owens. In one week in the summer of 1936, on the sacred soil of the Fatherland, the master athlete humiliated the master race.

Owens' story is one of a high-profile sports star making a statement that transcended athletics, spilling over into the world of global politics. Berlin, on the verge of World War II, was bristling with Nazism, red-and-black swastikas flying everywhere. Brown-shirted Storm Troopers goose-stepped while Adolf Hitler postured, harangued, threatened. A montage of evil was played over the chillingly familiar Nazi anthem: "Deutschland Uber Alles."

This was the background for the 1936 Olympics. When Owens finished competing, the African-American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy.

He gave four virtuoso performances, winning gold medals in the 100- and 200- meter dashes, the long jump and on America's 4x100 relay team. Score it: Owens 4, Hitler 0.

A remarkably even-keeled and magnanimous human being, Owens never rubbed it in. Just as sure as he knew fascism was evil, he also knew his country had a ways to go too in improving life for African-Americans.

"When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens 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 wasn't complaining. That wasn't his style. He believed it was his job "to try to make things better."

Born James Cleveland Owens on Sept. 12, 1913, in Oakville, Ala., he was often ill as a child, suffering from both chronic bronchial congestion and several bouts of pneumonia. Inadequate housing, food and clothing didn't help his health.

By the age of seven he was expected to pick 100 pounds of cotton a day. At nine his family moved to Cleveland. When a teacher asked his name, he answered, "J.C.," which is what he was called. The teacher misunderstood his Southern drawl and the name was Jesse from then on.

Jesse Owens pumping gas

As a teenager he set or tied national high school records in the 100- and 220-yard dashes and the long jump (called the broad jump then). At Ohio State, he was not a good student but he was easily the swiftest on the track.

Two weeks before the 1935 Big Ten Championships, Owens was involved in some playful hi-jinks with his roommates. But the prank backfired and he slipped on water during his getaway, severely injuring his tailbone.

On May 25 in Ann Arbor, Mich., Owens couldn't even bend over to touch his knees. But as the sophomore settled in for his first race, he said the pain "miraculously disappeared."

3:15 -- The "Buckeye Bullet" ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds to tie the world record. 3:25 -- In his only long jump, he leaped 26-8 1/4, a world record that would last 25 years.

3:34 -- His 20.3 seconds bettered the world record in the 220-yard dash.

4:00 -- With his 22.6 seconds in the 220-yard low hurdles, he became the first person to break 23 seconds in the event.

Some credit Owens with setting five world records, saying he also beat the marks for the shorter 200 meters and 200-meter low hurdles.

In his junior year at Ohio State, Owens competed in 42 events and won them all, including four in the Big Ten Championships, four in the NCAA Championships, two in the AAU Championships and three at the Olympic Trials.

In Germany, the Nazis portrayed African-Americans as inferior and ridiculed the United States for relying on "black auxiliaries." One German official even complained that the Americans were letting "non-humans, like Owens and other Negro athletes," compete.

But the German people felt otherwise. Crowds of 110,000 cheered him in Berlin's glittering Olympic Stadium and his autograph or picture was sought as he walked the streets.

On Aug. 3, the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Owens won his first final, taking the 100 meters in 10.3, edging out Ralph Metcalfe, also an African-American.

The next day, Owens was almost out of the long jump shortly after qualifying began. He fouled on his first two jumps, though he was stunned when officials counted a practice run down the runway and into the pit as an attempt.

Luz Long and Jesse Owens

With one jump remaining, Luz Long, a tall, blue-eyed, blond German long jumper who was his stiffest competition, introduced himself. He suggested that Owens make a mark several inches before the takeoff board and jump from there to play it safe. Owens took the advice, and qualified.

In the finals that afternoon, Long's fifth jump matched Owens' 25-10. But Owens leaped 26-3¾ on his next attempt and won the gold medal with a final jump of 26-5½. The first to congratulate the Olympic record holder was Long, who looked like the model Nazi but wasn't.

"It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler," Owens said. "You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II." Owens, though, would continue to correspond with Long's family.

In the 200-meter dash on August 5, Owens won in an Olympic record of 20.7 seconds, beating out Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson.

That was supposed to be the end of Owens' Olympic participation. But from out of the blue, Owens and Metcalfe replaced Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, the only Jews on the U.S. track team, on the 4x100-meter relay.

The rumor was that the Nazi hierarchy had asked U.S. officials not to humiliate Germany further by using two Jews to add to the gold medals the African-Americans already had won. Glickman blamed U.S. Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage for acquiescing to the Nazis.

On August 9, the 4x100 relay team, with Owens running leadoff, won by 15 yards and its world-record time of 39.8 seconds would last 20 years. Upon Owens' return to New York and a ticker-tape parade, he had to ride the freight elevator to a reception in his honor at the Waldorf-Astoria. He was treated as a kind of curiosity. When endorsements didn't come his way, he made money by, among other activities, running against horses and dogs.

"People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?" Owens said. "I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals."

Not until the fifties did he achieve financial security, becoming a public speaker for corporations and opening a public-relations firm.

In a 1950 Associated Press poll, he was voted the greatest track and field star for the first half of century, outpolling Jim Thorpe by almost three to one.

In 1976, President Ford presented Owens with the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. can bestow upon a civilian.

Owens, a-pack-a-day smoker for 35 years, died of lung cancer at age 66 on March 31, 1980 in Tucson, Ariz.

Four years later, a street in Berlin was renamed in his honor.

A decade after his death, President Bush posthumously awarded Owens the Congressional Medal of Honor. Bush called his victories in Berlin "an unrivaled athletic triumph, but more than that, a triumph for all humanity."  (source: ESPN)

Olympic Parade Brings Tokyo To A Standstill

TOKYO – Thousands of fans have screamed, cheered and snapped photos as Japan’s Olympic medalists paraded through downtown Tokyo.

Members of the silver-medal winning women’s football team, dubbed the Nadeshiko after a pink mountain flower, were among the Olympians wearing red jackets and riding open-air buses through the main street of the Ginza shopping district Monday.

The 38 medals won at the London games were the most ever by a Japanese Olympic team.

“They boosted our spirits,” said Akiko Ina, who came to the parade with her 7-year-old daughter Kanare, and had a Japanese flag emblazoned on one cheek and the numeral 15 for her favorite female football player on the other.

Japan has been struggling to recover from a devastating earthquake and tsunami last March that set off a nuclear crisis.  (source: Sports Inquirer Net)

TOKYO - Japan's Olympic medallists brought downtown Tokyo to a standstill on Monday in an open-top bus victory parade witnessed by around 500,000 flag and fan-waving supporters.

The convoy of five buses caused gridlock as fans and shoppers in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza district help celebrate Japan's record haul of 38 medals (seven gold, 14 silver and 17 bronze) at the London Olympics.

People working in offices above street level leant precariously out of windows to cheer as the athletes navigated through a vast sea of supporters in Japan's first Olympic celebratory parade of its kind.

Attended by 71 of the country's 76 medallists in total, the athletes, sporting their red Olympic jackets, waved as fans crammed the pavement in sweltering summer heat and screamed their names and messages of congratulations.

One athlete carried placards in support of the northeast region of Japan devastated by last year's deadly tsunami.

"Japan's sportsmen and women have done so much to lift spirits since last year's disaster," 33-year-old sales assistant Yurie Miyajima told Reuters. "They were fantastic in London."

Some of the biggest cheers were reserved for the Japanese women's soccer team, who took the silver medal in London after their stunning World Cup success in Germany last year.

Japan's 'Nadeshiko' team - named after a frilly pink carnation - had come to embody the spirit of a nation battling to recover from the tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis.

The convoy of vehicles were adorned with Tokyo 2020 logos, and Japanese Olympic Committee President (JOC) Tsunekazu Takeda promised the country would push ahead with its proposed bid.

"Japan is an incredible sporting nation and holds its athletes, Olympians in particular, in very high esteem," he said.

"The unprecedented performance in London makes us even more determined to deliver a dynamic celebration in the heart of the world's most forward-thinking city."

Tokyo lost out to Rio de Janeiro in the race to host the 2016 Olympics but the city is considered a strong contender for the following Games. Madrid and Istanbul are also bidding.

Tokyo hosted Asia's first Olympics in 1964. (source: China Daily)

Olympics: The Highs and Lows of Winning Gold

 

BBC SPORT:  Olympics: The Highs and Lows of Winning Gold

Journalist Matthew Syed talks to previous Olympic medallists about the psychological effect of winning the ultimate sporting prize.

Speaking to former Olympians such as Denise Lewis, Michael Johnson and Matthew Pinsent, Syed discovers what happens after you've had your moment on the podium, and what's left once you've reached the top of your game.

Documentary: Usain Bolt - The Fastest Man Alive

Documentary: Usain Bolt - The Fastest Man Alive

Sprinter Gene?

From The Australian, "Genetic research shows athletic skill is not a black and white issue," by Matthew Syed From: The Times of London, on 9  August 2012 -- BLACK men have dominated the sprints again. All the finalists in the 100m were black, as they have been at every Olympic final for more than a quarter of a century.

The past 25 holders of the world record for the 100m have been black and data compiled in 2007 revealed that 494 of the 500 best-ever 100m times were recorded by black athletes.

The 200m will doubtless be won by a black man tomorrow, too.

Usain Bolt is the hot favourite and Yohan Blake, his countryman from Jamaica, could take silver, as he did in the 100m.

Christophe Lemaitre, of France, who today qualified for the final with a time of 20.03, is, perhaps, the only white man in with a possibility of making the top five. And even that is a long shot.

The preponderance of blacks in the sprints led to a curious exchange on the BBC on the night of the 100m final. Allan Wells was asked by Gabby Logan to describe his emotions when he won the Olympic 100m final in Moscow in 1980.

The Scot started a sentence, reconsidered, started once more, and then paused again. If he had been as indecisive on the start line, he would not have made the final.

Eventually he said: "Well, that was the last time a white man was in the Olympic final. And I managed to win it as well."

As a statement of fact, it was incontestable, but Logan swiftly and wisely moved the conversation on.

She knew that beneath the surface of what was doubtless intended as an innocent observation lurked a ticking time bomb of political and scientific controversy.

When Lemaitre became the first white man to run under 10 seconds in the 100m in 2010, it was less a sporting story than an ideological one.

The Frenchman was dubbed "White Lightning" in the French press and asked a lot of questions about the "racial" distribution of success in sprinting.

He was also asked to comment on what this might tell us about the world beyond sport. Little wonder that the Frenchman has seemed, at times, a little bemused.

"We are used to seeing black people winning in the sprints, it has always been about colour, it's nothing new," he said in one interview, adding: "It's always just been black sprinters before because, physically, black people become stronger and faster younger than the rest of us.

"We always thought they were better built to be athletes than white people. But I think that's too stereotyped because if a white guy works hard, he can also achieve a lot."

The question that underpins the fascination with Lemaitre is a simple one: is the success of black sprinters based on a genetic advantage? For many, the answer is obvious.

What other explanation could there be for why blacks dominate an event that is both objective and transparent?

Anything less than an unequivocal "yes" is a testament to the power of political correctness.

But take a look at the data once more: 494 of the 500 fastest times were achieved by black sprinters. But there is something else about these men. Almost all of them were either born in West Africa or can trace their forebears to that region.

In other words, East, Southern and other Africans have had almost no success in the sprints whatsoever. But these athletes are black, too. The logical fallacy is a simple one. When we say "blacks" are better at sprinting, we are indulging in an unstated generalisation.

"Black" is a term that contains all sorts of variety, genetic and otherwise. The pygmies in central Africa, the Nandi and the Masai all have black skin pigmentation. However, they are, in anatomical terms, very different. To watch a tiny subset of dark-skinned people succeed in a particular event and to infer that this superiority is shared by all dark-skinned people is to go way beyond the available evidence.

Even if we were to redefine sprinting supremacy as a West African trait, we will still confront obvious problems.

Not a single sprinting medal has been won at the Olympic Games or the World Championships by Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, the Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Niger, Benin, Mali, the Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Gabon, Senegal, Congo and Angola. Yet these are all West African states.

Success in modern sprinting has, in fact, been concentrated among two population groups: Jamaicans and African Americans. It may be that these two groups have a natural advantage (whether on average in the population or among their fastest sprinters, or both). But this is a world away from the assertion that blacks in general are better sprinters.

Research undertaken in 2003 found that variation in a particular gene called ACTN3 is associated with sprinting success (through its impact on fast-twitch muscle fibres), and that the "sprint" version of this gene is more common among Jamaicans than other populations.

This led to headlines suggesting that Jamaican sprinting success is hereditary. A recent book by a leading French journalist has also made this claim.

But the reality is more complex. Although 98 per cent of Jamaicans have the relevant gene, so, too, do 82 per cent of Europeans. In other words, both these populations have a huge majority of individuals with an ACTN3 gene conducive to sprinting success.

Further research has found that Kenyans (who win distance events but have virtually no success in sprinting) have an even higher frequency of the relevant gene than Jamaicans.

It turns out that most of the genetic diversity within mankind is contained within racial groups, rather than between them. At these Olympics, blacks, who have often been under-represented in swimming events, have started making it into the US team.

It is possible, although not certain, that patterns of national dominance in swimming and athletics will change over time, as the popularity of different sports shift.

What is certain is that the very notion of "black" athletic superiority is deeply misguided.  (source:  The Australian, The London Times)

The Price of Gold: Dominique Moceanu

From Vogue Magazine, 13 June 2012, "The Price of Gold: Dominique Moceanu’s New Book Sheds Light on the Secret World of a Former Gymnast," by by Antonina Jedrzejczak

“I had Olympic gold at age fourteen, left home and became emancipated from my parents in a very public ordeal at seventeen, and I didn’t think anything else could shock me in my life, but boy was I wrong,” says Dominique Moceanu on the eve of the publication of her rousing, intimate memoir Off Balance, out today from Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. The secret that rocked the already turbulent life of the former gymnast in her late 20s—that a younger handicapped sister was given up for adoption by her parents without her knowledge—is revealed on the first page, a fitting opening to the relentlessly candid and oftentimes painful story of the life and career of the youngest American gymnast to win an Olympic gold medal.

Born in California to Romanian parents, both ex-gymnasts who escaped the brutal Ceauşescu regime in the 1980s, Moceanu began training at age three (as the story goes, her parents let her hang from a clothing line as a toddler to test her strength). A move from Florida to Houston in 1991 at ten years old landed her a spot as one of the last two gymnasts to be trained by the legendary and controversial Romanian power couple Béla and Marta Károlyi (of Nadia Comăneci and Mary Lou Retton coaching fame). In the four years that followed, the wins came surely and steadily—a U.S. National Team spot in 1992, gold and silver at the Junior Pan American Games that same year, and U.S. Junior National Champion in 1994 and Senior National Champion in 1995—and swiftly made the spunky, brown-eyed youth a fan favorite. But speaking of that period, Moceanu is quick to point out, “A lot of the time in an elite athlete’s career, people don’t know what goes on behind closed doors because much of what you see is just one or two competitions a year from that person’s life.”

Behind her own closed door, it was the adults who loomed large, and much of the book takes the Károlyis head on. “They broke me down so much emotionally during my training,” explains Moceanu, whose voice still sounds as earnest as it did in childhood interviews. Enforcing public weigh-ins and causing her to miss the opening and closing Olympic ceremonies due to grueling, last-minute practices, Marta and Béla she adds “really drove the childhood love that I had for gymnastics right out of me.” Both the catalyst behind her commitment to the sport and a source of pervading trepidation, Moceanu’s father upheld the Károlyis’ authority and her relationship with him was, she admits, “the most difficult chapter to write.” As for her mother, Moceanu speaks protectively. “We both grew up in a household with a lot of fear. If she tried to raise her voice there would be violence against her.” Two decades later, it was Moceanu who reintroduced her mother to the middle daughter she was forced by her husband to give up at birth. “Out of all three of us she looks the most like my father,” Moceanu says of the sister she now sees regularly, adding, “Sometimes when I look at her I can’t believe how it’s all come full circle.”

It’s a sense of forgiveness and acceptance that largely coincided with becoming a mother herself. “You don’t get a handbook to guiding your child to Olympic gold,” she says, when reflecting on the long-ago decision to sue her parents for emancipation and regain control of her earnings, often squandered by her father. “Looking back, I realize he wanted what was best for me.” Now 30 and based in Cleveland, Moceanu remains immersed in her sport through public speaking, and most recently, a four-part children’s book series, The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts. She and her husband, former gymnast Michael Canales, M.D., whom she met when she was twelve, and their three- and four-year-old kids, remain fervent followers of the summer games. “We get Olympic fever like everyone else! We love track and field and swimming, and obviously, gymnastics is number one.”

Seven years in the making, Off Balance is as much a telling of Moceanu’s story as it is an effort to protect gymnasts in the future. “We can’t be treating our adolescent women in this way; who’s protecting these athletes?” asks Moceanu of the ends-justify-the-means practices that contributed to her athletic success at the expense of her personal well-being. “It’s not easy to go against the governing body and be so outspoken. For a lot of gymnasts, if they do that the door shuts very quickly on their opportunities. Well, now I have nothing to lose.” (source: Vogue Magazine)

Trinidad and Tobago's Gold Medalist Keshorn Walcott

Thousands turn out at Trinidad & Tobago's airport to greet Walcott

As reported in Yahoo! Sport, "Olympic champion rewarded with free lighthouse," on 15 August 2012 -- Britain's Olympic champions have been recognised with golden postboxes and special stamps. In America, new champions have been given a healthy $25,000 cash bonus.

But none of that can hold a candle to the prizes lavished upon Trinidad and Tobago's champion Keshorn Walcott.

Keshorn Walcott Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar

The 19-year-old was a shock winner of the javelin, taking advantage of the world's best all having off-days as he came through to claim victory with a relatively unremarkable throw of 84.58m.

But while his throw was rather modest by Olympic standards (it was the shortest winning effort since 1988), the prizes it brought him are anything but: on his return to his home country Walcott was given £100,000 in cash, a luxury home, 20,000 acres of land and - best of all - a free lighthouse!

As if that weren't enough, Walcott - who is the first athlete from outside Europe to win the javelin in 20 years - will also have a yet-to-be-determined national landmark named in his honour, while Caribbean Airlines will name a plane after him.

Keshorn Walcott kisses his mother Beverly Walcott at Piarco International Airport

The scale of the prizes reflect the rarity of the achievement for a Trinidadian:  Walcott is only the second gold medallist ever from Trinidad and Tobago, with the first being sprinter Hasley Crawford, who won the 100m back in 1976.

It wasn't only Walcott who benefited from his throw, however: everyone in the country got a day off work to mark his achievement, thanks to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Biessessar declaring a national holiday.

No wonder so many turned out to welcome him home: thousands of people turned up at the airport to welcome him home, all decked out in the national colours of red and black. (source: Yahoo! Sport)

Before Gold Medal Housing:   19 year old Keshorn Walcott won the second ever Olympic gold medal for Trinidad &Tobago. This is a picture of the house he grew up in.

After Gold Medal Housing

Olympic Silver Medalist Jeff Demps Signs with the NFL's New England Patriots

USA TODAY reported, "Patriots sign Olympic medalist Jeff Demps to a contract," by Jarrett Bell, on 21 August 2012 -- Fresh off winning a silver medal at the London Olympics, Jeff Demps can now chase Super Bowl glory.

The New England Patriots announced the signing of the Olympian late Friday night, finally confirming reports that swirled throughout the day of an imminent deal. Contract terms were undisclosed.

"To everyone wondering, yes it's true I'm now a new England patriot," Demps tweeted. "Glad to be apart of the team. It's truly an honor. #Godisgreat"

The mission is apparent. Demps, 22, a running back and kick returner at Florida who went undrafted as he focused on track, is positioned to provide the Patriots with a jolt of world-class speed for their lackluster kickoff-return game. He will also add depth in the backfield.

Demps, 5-foot-7 and 191 pounds, chose the Patriots over several other teams that expressed interest, including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Jets. His agent, Daniel Rose, said Thursday that at least five teams had shown "super serious" interest in Demps since he won a medal as part of the U.S. Olympic squad's 4x100-meter relay team that was beaten out for the gold medal by Jamaica.

At Florida, Demps averaged 6.7 yards per carry in rushing for 2,470 yards and 23 TDs. He also returned 21 kickoffs during his career, averaging 28.8 yards with a TD.

"If he's committed to football over track, the guy can be a dynamic sub package option for an offense in the NFL," a scouting report from National Football Post says. "A big-play threat who can create mismatches in the pass game and hit the home run when you get him in space."

Friday afternoon, before the signing was announced, Patriots personnel director Nick Caserio confirmed the team's interest in scouting Demps.

"Good with the ball, good speed, caught the ball OK, a little bit undersized," Caserio said during his regularly-scheduled weekly briefing with reporters. "Florida has a track record of some pretty good football players that have come out of there. But any time we go into a school, we'll look at everybody, regardless of whatever their circumstance is."

Obviously, the Patriots liked what they saw in Demps. (source: USA TODAY)