Olympic heroes, No 3: Jesse Owens

Published on 14/06/2012 02:29

MORE than just a man who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens will forever be remembered as the black athlete who interrupted what Adolf Hitler had intended to be a show of Aryan sporting strength.

Owens won both the 100 and 200 metres and the long jump, and was a member of the victorious American 4x100m relay team. But, immediately after the Games, he was stripped of his amateur status by the United States after taking up lucrative commercial offers on the back of his success.

When these inevitably began to dry up, Owens found money hard to come by and he tried to make a living as an entertainer, racing and defeating racehorses.

He said later: “People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals. Owens, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer in 1980.