When Berlin was designated the host city of the eleventh edition of the Olympic Games of the modern era in 1931, very few should have assumed that five years later the German and European political scene would find itself extraordinarily concerned about the consecration of Adolf Hitler as the highest Nazi hierarchical of the Nazi regime. A year before the Olympic event, there had been a number of initiatives, especially in the United States, to organize a boycott, and which in the American case was about to succeed.
Berlin'36 will be remembered for gigantism and organizational perfection and, above all, for Hitler's attempt – fortunately failed – to use it as an instrument to prove in practice theories of Aryan racial superiority. It was not in part because in the collective memory will forever be engraved the gestation of a black American athlete who, with his four gold medals, slapped the proud face of Nazism in his own house: Jesse Owens. In Berlin, the hen-to-present balance between politics and sport fell apart in all its fragility.
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At the XXVIII IOC Congress held in Berlin from 25 to 30 May 1930, the cities seeking the candidacy for the host of the 11th Olympic Olympic Games were unveiled. No less than eleven asked for it, of which four were German: Nuremberg, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Berlin. The remaining were Alexandria, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Helsinki, Rome, and Barcelona. The interest lay in the increasing prestige that the Games gave to the city that hosted them, which also affected the whole nation and its corresponding influx of tourism.
In 1929 Barcelona had successfully celebrated its Universal Exhibition, for which the Catalan city attracted powerful attention for its organizational capacity. This fact united the sympathies of the components of the CIO, who saw in it one of the most equipped to host the Olympic right. In the end, the correspondence vote was decided and when on the thirteenth of May of the same year the count was carried out in Lausanne, the votes were favorable to Berlin by 43 to 16 Barcelona and 8 abstentions.
But Berlin's election itself generated deep international dissensions and divergences soon became apparent. During the Los Angeles Games, Nazi ideologue Julius Streicher publicly called the Olympics an 'infamous Jewish-dominated festival.'Hitler, appointed chancellor of the Reich a week after the first meeting of the Organizing Committee, soon meddled. Although Hindenburg was the Reich's chief nominal, no one doubted who was in power: in March 1933 Hitler received a visit from the chairman and vice-chairman of the Committee, who explained the projects to him and requested their cooperation.
The fact that the 1936 Olympic Games, tailor-made for the white race, and within it, of the Aryan race, had their maximum figure in a colored athlete, like Jesse Owens, can be considered as one of the greatest ironies in Olympic history. And at the same time, as the best demonstration that the Olympics must be – and indeed they are – above all kinds of differences, including, of course, those of race, but also the policies and even the nation.
Hence what the Games could lose when it was held under the presidency of Adolf Hitler – who, by added, was in charge of uttering the ritual words – recovered it with the triumphs of Jesse Owens, as well as other athletes of color. So, once again, the spirit of Baron de Coubertin, who nevertheless did not want to attend the Berlin Olympics, would triumph.
'God of the Stadium,' “The Buckeye Bullet” and 'Black Hurricane' were three of the most frequent qualifiers Jesse Owens awoke among the countless admirers of his time. The first came from his unrivaled feat of Berlin, where he won four gold medals. But the other two were coming before. Specifically, a very particular day in which he achieved a feat perhaps even greater than the Olympic feat that starred in Hitler's shadow. I refer to May 25, 1935, when Owens entered the legend by breaking five world records and matching another in the short 70-minute time (although it is also likely to find data that refers to 45 minutes).
The 22-year-old (born September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama), James Cleveland Owens demonstrated absolute maturity in the German capital. Not only did he get the four victories mentioned, but he gave a lesson in sportsmanship, making friends with his greatest rival in the long jump, Luz Long. Long was Aryan and prototype of the 'Nazi' ideal of the race that was to dominate the world.
And although Long waved aloft towards the box when he made his 7.87 m jump in the fifth try, he also knew how to hug Owens when he beat him twice in the last jumps, with distances of 7.94 m and 8.06. The latter mark was an Olympic record that remained until Ralph Boston made 8.12 in Rome-1960.
Berlin represented for Owens the culmination and end of his short career, which began in 1933 after to spend a hard childhood on the cotton plantations. Tenth of eleven siblings, James Cleveland began to stand out at the age of 15 for his powerful and elastic figure and, above all, for his speed. Elegant and fibrous, in 1933 he won the first U.S. title in 100 meters, which
would repeat in 1934 and 1936, thus achieving this last year also the title of length. In total, he a creditor of eight world records and three Olympians. The 200 m (20'7) was not improved until 1956.
As soon as he finished the Games, overwhelmed by the constant competitions that his federation made him attend, he left athletics, fighting his last race on August 15, 1936, in White City (London). Afterward, he worked as a dancer in a jazz orchestra, was wanted to enlist in a professional football team and player races against horses, being part of several more shows. A man of great heart, he founded an institution for black youth in Chicago and took care of the son of his Olympic rival, Luz Long, when he died on a battlefield in Sicily in 1943.
They were two of his most prized victories before lung cancer took him away forever on March 31, 1980. It was the end of the 'God of the Stadium' and the end, in short, of one of the greatest athletes of all time.
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