American track and field athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. His long jump world record stood for 25 years. Jesse Owens, also known as "The Buckeye Bullet," was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals and broke two world records at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Owens’ athletic career began in high school when he won three track and field events at the 1933 National Interscholastic Championships. Two years later, while competing for Ohio State University, he equaled one world record and broke three others before qualifying and competing in the 1936 Olympics.
Owens was born James Cleveland Owens on September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama. The son of a sharecropper and the grandson of enslaved people, Owens was a frail child who was often sick from battles with chronic bronchial congestion and pneumonia. Still, he was expected to work, and at the young age of seven he was picking up to 100 pounds of cotton a day to help his family put food on the table. At the age of nine, Owens moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, where the young "J.C." discovered a world far different than the slower, Southern life he'd known. School proved to be one of the bigger changes. Gone was the one-room schoolhouse he'd attended in Alabama, replaced by a bigger setting with stricter teachers. Here, Owens earned the nickname that would stick with him the rest of his life: One of his instructors, unable to decipher his thick southern accent, believed the young athlete said his name was "Jesse," when he, in fact, had said "J.C."
At East Technical High School, Owens quickly made a name for himself as a nationally recognized sprinter, setting records in the 100 and 200-yard dashes as well as the long jump. After graduating, Owens enrolled at Ohio State University, where he continued to flourish as an athlete. At the 1935 Big Ten Championships, the "Buckeye Bullet," as he was also known, overcame a severe tailbone injury and tied a world record in the 100-yard dash—and set a long jump record of 26-8 ¼ that would stand for 25 years. Owens also set new world marks in the 220-yard dash and in the 220-yard low hurdles. His dominance at the Big Ten games was par for the course for Owens that year, which saw him win four events at the NCAA Championships, two events at the AAU Championships and three others at the Olympic trials. In all, Owens competed in 42 events that year, winning them all. Continue reading from Biography
Jesse Owens (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Jesse Owens: Biography (Olympics)
Jesse Owens vs. Hitler Wasn’t the Only Story at the 1936 Olympics (The Undefeated)
Jesse Owens Wins 4th Gold Medal : 1936 Berlin Olympics (History)
See the Controversial Drama of Adolf Hitler's 1936 Summer Olympics (Time)
