Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens delivered one of sport's most defiant performances in the most hostile arena imaginable, winning four gold medals at Adolf Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics and demolishing the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy before the world. Born on September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama, the tenth child of sharecroppers whose own parents had been enslaved, Owens discovered his extraordinary gifts on the track fields of Cleveland and Columbus. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics he won gold in the 100-metre dash, the 200-metre dash, the long jump, and the 4 x 100-metre relay — the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Games. His long jump mark of 8.06 metres stood as an Olympic record for 24 years. Back home, however, he received no congratulatory telegram from President Franklin Roosevelt, a snub that stung. Owens spent later years as a goodwill ambassador for sport, and in 1976 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford. He died on March 31, 1980, in Tucson, Arizona, remembered as one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century.