Jesse Owens documentary

Last week, I had the pleasure of viewing the documentary “Jesse Owens” directed by Laurens Grant.

The American Embassy hosted the event and the panel discussion afterwards including the director and two former Olympians 1968  200 meters bronze medalist and civil rights icon John Carlos, and the UK's very  own silver medalist 200 meters John Regis.

The story about Jesse Owens to which we are all familiar is famously told through the prism of Nazi Germany: In 1936 Adolf Hitler sought to use the games a platform to proclaim to the to the world the superiority of the Aryan race.  Grant’s masterful documentary not only highlights and embellishes what most of us already know but illuminates other aspects in a way that gives greater appreciating to the man and the times in which these momentous events occurred.

Interestingly, ‘Jesse Owens’ the man who beat Hitler’s Germany could have easily been Eulace Peacock, often described as the ‘forgotten man’. Although, for a very long time Owens was unbeatable, a year before the games, he had a rival in Eulace Peacock who had broken his world record and had beaten him at sprinting and long jump no less than five times.  Owens was at times conceding that Peacock’s time had come, but due to pulling hamstring months before the games he could not compete in the games. Owens too was doubtful not because of any injury but because the Black organization the NAACP was vehemently against fascism and had lobbied Owens to boycott the games. Owens’s agreed not to go, but the powerful machine of the State demanded that all athletes go to Germany.

It has been well documented that Hitler snubbed Owens at the medal ceremony, but it is little known that the German people adored the fastest man on the planet, cheering his name every time he came into the stadium. Even more fascinating for the times was the rivalry in the long jump between Owens and the blue eyed, blond hair German Lutz Long In the final set of jumps the lead oscillated between the two until Owens jumped an incredible 25feet 5inches. A world record that remained for two decades. But even greater than that world record Owens’s spontaneously interlocked his arm with the great German, and together they did a lap of honour. The two men became great friends all their lives.

There were two terrible sad elements to this wonderful story: First, the episode which saw Owens win his fourth gold medal-the 100-yard relay, neither covers him nor the USA in glory. Owens was not due to run in this race, but at the last minute, Germans demanded that the two American Jews we not allowed to run. The USA capitulated to the Nazi demands and replaced Stan Stoller and Marty Glickman with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe.

Equally depressing was the long-time reaction to the American people to their Olympic champion. Although he was initially received will just after the games his only way of making a living was in the demeaning spectacle of racing horse. Owens may have dented the German theory of Aryan supremacy, but Jim Crow segregation and racism in the US was alive and kicking.

The abiding memory one is left with watching the documentary is though of Owens, the supreme athlete: graceful, elegant and lightening fast. The great Jesse Owens

Simon Woolley