biography
| name: |
Owens, Jesse
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| |
popular name of James or John Cleveland
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1913–80)
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| biography:
| Track and field athlete, born in Danville, Alabama, USA. After setting records as a schoolboy athlete in Cleveland, he attended Ohio State University where (25 May 1935), he set three world records and tied another in the span of about an hour. (His 26 ft 8 in long jump was not broken until 1960.) At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany, he disproved for the world Adolf Hitler's proclamation of ‘Aryan supremacy’ by achieving the finest one-day performance in track history with four gold medals (100 m, 200 m, 4 x 100 m, long jump), and Hitler left the stadium to avoid having to congratulate an African-American. Although he gained worldwide publicity for his feat, back in the USA he gained few financial or social benefits, and was reduced to running ‘freak’ races against horses and dogs. After graduating from Ohio State (1937) he went into private business before becoming secretary of the Illinois Athletic Commission (until 1955). He made a goodwill tour of India for the US State Department and attended the 1956 Olympics as President Eisenhower's personal representative. He returned to Illinois to direct youth sports activities for the Illinois Youth Commission. In a belated gesture of national recognition, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. |
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