08: Greatest Athletes Spotlight: Jesse Owens
Written By: Ben Drury
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Greatest Athletes Spotlight where every week I talk about the greatest track and field athletes of all time. For this week’s spotlight, I picked one of the greatest and most influential track and field athletes, Jesse Owens. Owens' career ended 89 years ago which is mind-blowing and is hard for me to believe.
89 years is a long time, and track and field has changed a lot since Jesse Owens competed. During the late 1920s to mid-1930s, the span of Owens’ career, there was no professional track and field, no shoe sponsors, no sports nutrition, no training 12 months out of the year for the Olympics, and training was nowhere near to what it is now. Considering this, track and field greats during this period’s careers were normally short-lived.
Jesse Owens only competed in one Olympic games during his career, the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and he was dominant. Owens competed in four events and won a gold medal in every one of them, which I could barely imagine happening today. In Berlin, Owens did a little bit of everything and his four gold medals consisted of the 100m, 200m, 4x100m Relay, and long jump.
Another great accomplishment that came with Owens’ short but very successful career was the amount of world records that he broke. The funny thing about the records that he did break is that most of them are not competed in anymore. Owens broke the world record in the long jump, but he also broke the record in the now-rare 220-yard dash, and 220-yard low hurdles, along with tying the record in the 100-yard dash.
You may be wondering, why Jesse Owens left track and field, well, he didn’t choose to, the AAU or Amateur Athletic Union banned him. That sounds crazy right, banning a four-time Olympic gold medalist is unfathomable, but they did it because he refused to go on a fundraising tour with the USA track and field team. Because of that, Jesse Owens never competed in another Olympics, but his impact goes far beyond winning medals.
The 1936 Olympics were an Olympics that will forever go down in history as one of the most impactful games ever. The Berlin Games were a showcase for the Nazis to show how put together they were, and they used it as a facade to hide all of their horrible actions. Jesse Owens was a beacon to all people. In the Nazis’ eyes, Owens as a black man, was seen as lesser to them, and shouldn’t be competing in the Olympics, so for him to win four gold medals and to stand on top of the podium was a big deal.
Unfortunately, Owens was not as well accepted and appreciated when he got home from Berlin and Owens struggled to find work, He worked as a gas station attendant, playground janitor, and manager of a dry cleaning firm, that is just crazy for me to think about.
I picked Jesse Owens because I wanted to shed more light on his career, all he did, and all his legacy still does for athletes today. Owens’ career was short, but his medal collection and large impact show just how great of a track and field athlete he truly was.
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