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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. This week on the show, we talked about

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Speaker 1: anthropologist and anatomy professor W. Montague Cobb, and one of

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Speaker 1: the things that came up was his work debunking racist

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Speaker 1: interpretations of Jesse Owen's performance at the Olympic Games. Previous

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Speaker 1: host Sarah and Deblina has talked about this back on

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Speaker 1: August one that actually came out during the twelve Summer

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Speaker 1: Olympic Games, so we are sharing that episode again today.

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Speaker 1: One thing we did want to note before we get

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Speaker 1: into this episode. If we were recording this today, we

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Speaker 1: would update some of the language in it, particularly when

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Speaker 1: referencing the Romani who were persecuted under the Nazis and

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Speaker 1: excluded from the Games. So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm

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Speaker 1: Deblina Truck reporting and Dablina and I are continuing on

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Speaker 1: with our Olympic series. And when I first started thinking,

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Speaker 1: all right, we're going to cover some sports Olympics history

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Speaker 1: for this twelve Olympic Games, I've been thinking about a

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Speaker 1: podcast on African American track star Jesse Owens who of

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Speaker 1: course won four gold medals in the nineteen thirty six

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Speaker 1: Berlin Games and very famously proved that Hitler's ideas of

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Speaker 1: Arian superiority were just playing wrong. But Owen's story is

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Speaker 1: so personally compelling. It's the main thing that most folks,

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Speaker 1: I think have taken away from the nineteen thirty six Games.

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Speaker 1: It's what it's what you think of if you're thinking

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Speaker 1: of the Berlin Olympics, and if you look up a

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Speaker 1: clip of Owen's flying past his competitors or standing proudly

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Speaker 1: for the national anthem, it seems really easy to believe

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Speaker 1: that the thirty six Games must have just been a

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Speaker 1: complete failure for the Nazis and a huge embarrassment for Hitler. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but once you start reading more about the Berlin Games,

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Speaker 1: which are sometimes called the Nazi Olympics, you realize that

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Speaker 1: that's not really the case. What's often overlooked is how

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Speaker 1: successful the games were in terms of Nazi propaganda. For example,

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Speaker 1: they bolstered German pride, they threw off the suspicions of

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Speaker 1: the international community, at least temporarily and in a more

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Speaker 1: long lasting way, and away less tied up with the

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Speaker 1: war to come. They shaped the modern Olympic Games. Frank Afford,

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Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated writer and NPR commentator, calls them quote the

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Speaker 1: most fascinating and historically influential game. And Frank Afford knows

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Speaker 1: the sports too, so that's a pretty high statement. So

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Speaker 1: today we're going to be looking at both Jesse Owen's

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Speaker 1: story and the story of the nineteen thirty six Games

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Speaker 1: as a whole. The boycotts, the propaganda, the smoke and mirrors,

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Speaker 1: the athletes, whether they were African, American or German Jewish.

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Speaker 1: And one thing to just just consider before we even

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Speaker 1: get into this is why was the United States there?

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Speaker 1: Why was Great Britain or France there? And it's something

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Speaker 1: that we're going to be discussing throughout the podcast. So first,

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Speaker 1: let's start out with the initial irony of the story,

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Speaker 1: which was the International Olympic Game Committee awarded Berlin the

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Speaker 1: Games one as a sign of acceptances. It was a

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Speaker 1: welcome back in a way to the inspecial community. Right.

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Speaker 1: The second irony here, Hitler, who became Chancellor two years

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Speaker 1: after this decision, wasn't really interested in the Olympics at

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Speaker 1: all at first. Now and and today, because Hitler's reputation

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Speaker 1: is so tied up to pageantry in these mass public displays.

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Speaker 1: Think Lenny Reef install Her films. It seems odd that

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Speaker 1: Hitler wouldn't have immediately seen the Games as an opportunity

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Speaker 1: for a grand public show. But according to the US

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Speaker 1: Holocaust Memorial Museum, he initially just didn't see the appeal

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Speaker 1: of the Olympic vision. And that makes sense too. After all,

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Speaker 1: it's about internationalism, it's about fair competition. It's something that's

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Speaker 1: meant to promote peace between nations. You can you can

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Speaker 1: see how Hitler wouldn't be into that, but Joseph Goebbel's,

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Speaker 1: Hitler's minister of propaganda, ultimately convinced him that the games

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Speaker 1: would make great propaganda and prepared German youth for war.

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Speaker 1: As Goebbels himself said in thirty three, German sport has

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Speaker 1: only one task to strengthen the character of the German people,

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Speaker 1: imbuing it with the fighting spirit and steadfast camaraderie necessary

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Speaker 1: in the struggle for its existence. That doesn't make you

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Speaker 1: want to break out the ball and play a game

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Speaker 1: or something, No, it takes some of the fun out

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Speaker 1: of it, I think. But right from the start, the

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Speaker 1: Nazis controlled the games, The German Olympic Committee was supervised

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Speaker 1: by the Reich Sports Office and a new stadium was

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Speaker 1: built in Berlin. Colorful posters drew comparisons between ancient Greece

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Speaker 1: and modern Germany and featured Arian ideal athletes, so it

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Speaker 1: was a very political thing right from the start. But

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Speaker 1: to make that Arian ideal that they were glorifying on

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Speaker 1: the posters a reality for the Berlin Olympics, Jewish athletes,

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Speaker 1: of course, had to be excluded from competition in and

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Speaker 1: Hitler's anti Semitic policies, which started as soon as he

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Speaker 1: assumed power, also extended to sports right from the start,

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Speaker 1: and one very high level example of this was the

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Speaker 1: high jumper Gretel Bergmann, who found herself kicked out of

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Speaker 1: her athletic club in nineteen thirty three. She was a

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Speaker 1: star athlete, participated in lots of different sports and had

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Speaker 1: been linked to this athletic club for years. Immediately kicked out,

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Speaker 1: she started training with a club under the Jewish Association

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Speaker 1: of War Veterans, with a lot of other Jewish athletes

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Speaker 1: as well as Gypsy athletes um But in many cases

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Speaker 1: these alternate groups for for Jewish athletes to practice and

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Speaker 1: compete in just didn't have as good equipment, didn't have

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Speaker 1: as good facilities. They were subpar, and ultimately Bergmann was

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Speaker 1: strung along until just before the Games, when she was

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Speaker 1: ultimately thrown off the team. The international sports community caught

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Speaker 1: onto that discrimination, though, and talk started focusing on relocating

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Speaker 1: the games. Perhaps. The president of the American Olympic Committee,

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Speaker 1: Avery Brundage, even said that quote, the very foundation of

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Speaker 1: the modern Olympic revival will be undermined if individual countries

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Speaker 1: are allowed to restrict participation by reason of class, creed,

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Speaker 1: or race. So that takes a pretty strong stance on this.

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Speaker 1: This is not about your politics. It's about an international

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Speaker 1: sporting event. But unfortunately Brundage had a bit too much

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Speaker 1: sway in this matter, because in nineteen thirty four, with

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Speaker 1: a position like that out there, he was invited to

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Speaker 1: Berlin to investigate the situation for himself, and in a

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Speaker 1: tightly managed visit, you know, only seeing exactly what people

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Speaker 1: wanted him to see, he inspected facilities, met with athletes,

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Speaker 1: and came home convinced that Jewish athletes weren't being discriminated against.

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Speaker 1: After all that that things were going to be fine

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Speaker 1: in Germany, and that Berlin should certainly go ahead with

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Speaker 1: the games. Yeah, but not everyone was so convinced. Many

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Speaker 1: American newspapers, for example, called for a boycott. Much of

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Speaker 1: the Jewish community was in favor of skipping the games,

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Speaker 1: as were many US Catholic leaders. One of the most

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Speaker 1: prominent was Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, who was president of the

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Speaker 1: Amateur Athletic Union, and he argued that Germany was violating

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Speaker 1: key Olympic rules and that attending the games would basically

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Speaker 1: endorse the Reich, something that became more and more evident

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Speaker 1: when the Nuremberg Laws were announced in ninety five, stripping

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Speaker 1: Jews of citizenship. So it wasn't it was clearly not

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Speaker 1: just about athletes. There was a statement about the whole regime,

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Speaker 1: about the whole country at this point. But by December

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, after a campaign from Brundage suggesting as

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Speaker 1: far as uh the boycott being part of a Jewish

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Speaker 1: communist conspiracy quote that's that's how far he he took this,

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Speaker 1: the Amateur Athletic Union finally voted down a boycott. And

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Speaker 1: I find it interesting that people up in at the

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Speaker 1: very end saw it both ways bringedge, for instance, belief

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Speaker 1: that the boycott was politicizing the games and the games

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Speaker 1: were not something meant to be political. Those in favor

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Speaker 1: of the boycott, though, really saw the games themselves as

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Speaker 1: political and that was the problem. Um So. For example,

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Speaker 1: a month before the Amateur Athletic Union vote, the Committee

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Speaker 1: on Fair Play and Sports said quote, sport is prostituted

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Speaker 1: when sport loses its independent and democratic character and becomes

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Speaker 1: a political institution. Nazi Germany is endeavoring to use the

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Speaker 1: Eleventh Olympia to serve the necessities and interests of the

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Speaker 1: Nazi regime rather than the Olympic ideals. Strong feelings both ways,

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Speaker 1: very strong feelings. The American Athletic Unions vote kind of

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Speaker 1: set the tone internationally as well. Though there had been

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Speaker 1: boycott interest in France and Great Britain and Sweden, the

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Speaker 1: Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, nothing in pay and Out. A few

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Speaker 1: alternative games were planned, one on Long Island, one in Barcelona,

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Speaker 1: but these had to be canceled because of the One

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Speaker 1: in Barcelona at least had to be canceled because of

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Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War, but individual athletes could have of

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Speaker 1: course still boycott the games if they chose to so.

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Speaker 1: Several Jewish American athletes did so, including much of the

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Speaker 1: Long Island University basketball team, considered one of the best

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Speaker 1: teams in the country at the time, plus sprinters from

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Speaker 1: Tulane and Harvard. There was um we already mentioned. The

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Speaker 1: US Holocaust Memorial Museum site. They have a lot of

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Speaker 1: interviews with athletes, American athletes and German athletes, and one

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Speaker 1: is with sprinter Milton Green, who was the captain of

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Speaker 1: the Harvard team. And he decided to boycott after his

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Speaker 1: rabbi called him, called him in to tell him all

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Speaker 1: about what was happening to Jews in Germany, and he

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Speaker 1: felt like this was the right thing to do. And

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Speaker 1: he talked about how surprised he was that his decision

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Speaker 1: to boycott. He thought it would be a big deal.

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Speaker 1: He was one of the best runners in the country.

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Speaker 1: It didn't really resonate with anybody. Nobody really was even

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Speaker 1: aware that he had chosen to boycott. And he talked

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Speaker 1: also about how every Olympics that he had watched since then,

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Speaker 1: he would picture himself competing in his familiar events, missing

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Speaker 1: that chance, not really feeling bad or regretful about what

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Speaker 1: he had done, but just sort of wondering what could

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Speaker 1: have been to it seemed well missing that chance, and

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Speaker 1: then on top of it, feeling like nobody was really

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Speaker 1: paying attention. I'm sure it is like twice his heartbreaking.

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Speaker 1: But the African American community, however, had a very different

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Speaker 1: take on this boycott. They saw it as hypocritical since

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Speaker 1: for many blacks in the US, the idea of separate

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Speaker 1: and unequal sporting opportunities was pretty much old news. There

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Speaker 1: was a quote in the Philadelphia Tribune right before the

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Speaker 1: Amateur Athletic Union vote that went, quote, the Amateur Athletic

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Speaker 1: Union shouts against the cruelties of the other nations and

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Speaker 1: the brutalities and foreign climates, but conveniently forgets the things

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Speaker 1: that sit on its own doorstep. And plus there was

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Speaker 1: sort of an indication of what was gonna happen if

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Speaker 1: black athletes were allowed to go. Black victories would show

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Speaker 1: people just how wrong that area and ideal was. Eighteen

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Speaker 1: Black Olympians ended up competing on the US team and

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Speaker 1: ten metaled, so it was worth it for them to

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Speaker 1: not boycott, and and something to that sort of ties

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Speaker 1: into that. Jesse Owens victory was expected or some of

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Speaker 1: his victories were expected. You know, he was the fastest

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Speaker 1: runner in the country, and a lot of these other

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Speaker 1: athletes were clear shoe ins for for these competitions. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Black community knew if these guys were allowed to compete,

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Speaker 1: they they've had a very high chance of winning. Ultimately, though,

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Speaker 1: you know, despite these um these attempts to boycott, despite

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Speaker 1: these individual boycotts, forty nine nations chose to attend the games.

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Speaker 1: But we need to talk a little bit about what

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Speaker 1: the games were like, why were they the Nazi Olympics?

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Speaker 1: And one thing to get out there is by all

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Speaker 1: the else, they were incredibly impressive in every way. The

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Speaker 1: athletes competing were dazzled and that was that was part

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Speaker 1: of the point. Impressed the athletes. They'll go home with

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Speaker 1: a positive experience of the games. So just some examples

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Speaker 1: of what made these games so impressive. The forty nine

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Speaker 1: countries that attended, that was more countries than it ever

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Speaker 1: participated before. The opening ceremonies also featured for the first

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Speaker 1: time the lone runner carrying a torch that was lit

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Speaker 1: in Olympia, and the games were televised for the first time,

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Speaker 1: you could visit these viewing stations throughout Berlin to watch

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Speaker 1: Zeppelin's race newsreels around Europe for updated coverage. Lenny reef

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Speaker 1: Install filmed the Games for the movie Olympia, which was

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Speaker 1: released in night, and the German people were actually very welcoming.

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Speaker 1: Marty Glickman, a Jewish American athlete who chose not to boycott,

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Speaker 1: called it all a carnival though so of course a

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Speaker 1: lot of the success or the perceived success from the Games,

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Speaker 1: was from what was concealed rather than what was promoted.

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Speaker 1: So swastika's were bedecking all of the arenas and monuments,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of the anti Semitic signs had come

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Speaker 1: down around Berlin, at least on the heavily traffic streets.

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Speaker 1: Eight hundred Gypsies had been moved to a camp on

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Speaker 1: the outskirts of town, and just eighteen miles north of Berlin,

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Speaker 1: the Saxon Housen concentration camp was actually under construction during

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Speaker 1: the Games. I think I find this part maybe the

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Speaker 1: most extraordinary aspect of this, that it was so close

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Speaker 1: by um. Within months two of the closing ceremonies, that

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Speaker 1: concentration camp was open began accepting Jeovah's witnesses and political opponents,

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Speaker 1: so they were carrying on just not so overtly. In

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Speaker 1: in Berlin, Goebbels was acutely aware of what needed to

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Speaker 1: be hidden or avoided. Here in the Pink Triangle episode,

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Speaker 1: we talked about how Himmler was instructed to quote clean

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Speaker 1: up the town before visitors arrived, but under no circumstances

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Speaker 1: arrest gay foreigners under a paragraph one. So they hid

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Speaker 1: that part of their policy during that time because they

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Speaker 1: knew how people would view it. The same idea extended

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Speaker 1: to the press. The Reich press Chamber controlled all coverage

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Speaker 1: and forbade stories focused on race or religion, So a

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Speaker 1: quote from July ninety six, the racial point of view

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Speaker 1: should not be used in any way in reporting sports results.

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Speaker 1: Above all, negro should not be insensitively reported. Negroes are

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Speaker 1: American citizens and must be treated with respect as Americans,

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Speaker 1: so don't publish anything that's gonna get get the whole

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Speaker 1: country into trouble. That dictate, though specifically regarding African Americans,

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Speaker 1: proved impossible for the German press to maintain. Though after

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Speaker 1: the stunning success of the black members of the US

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Speaker 1: track team, the pro Nazi paper called the attack just

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Speaker 1: couldn't resist calling the black members of the team auxiliaries.

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Speaker 1: But to the rest of the world and including the

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Speaker 1: German public, we've gotta gotta say that the talent of

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Speaker 1: the track team was really captivating, and Owens especially was

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Speaker 1: a star. People were interested in in reading about them,

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Speaker 1: even if pro Nazi papers were calling them auxiliary. So

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Speaker 1: we've got to talk about the Owens story a little bit,

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Speaker 1: just because he is the main figure of this game's

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Speaker 1: and um his his background makes his accomplishments all the

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Speaker 1: more impressive. He was born in nineteen thirteen. He was

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Speaker 1: the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves.

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Speaker 1: Born in Danville, Alabama, he moved to Cleveland when he

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Speaker 1: was nine years old. Interestingly, his name was not His

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Speaker 1: given name was not Jesse, was a nickname. He Um

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Speaker 1: told the teacher his initials were Tour j C. And

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Speaker 1: in his Alabama accent, she mistook it for Jesse and

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Speaker 1: and it's stuck. You got to be careful of those

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Speaker 1: accents when you're from the South. We know that. But

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Speaker 1: he started racing at thirteen, and by his sophomore year

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Speaker 1: of college at Ohio State, Jesse broke five world records

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Speaker 1: and equaled a six in forty five minutes at his

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Speaker 1: first Big ten Championship with an injured back. He had

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Speaker 1: been horsing around or wrestling with some of his fraternity

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Speaker 1: brothers and couldn't even get dressed by himself, but he

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Speaker 1: was able to break five world records. According to his

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Speaker 1: New York Times obituary, the Big Ten commissioner Tug Wilson said, quote,

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Speaker 1: he is a floating wonder, just like he had wings.

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Speaker 1: So and we alluded to this earlier. Clearly, Jesse Owens

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Speaker 1: was a favorite in the Berlin Games with that record.

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Speaker 1: He had sat at the Big ten uh competition just

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Speaker 1: a year before, and he really did deliver. He won

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Speaker 1: the gold in the hundred meter, the two D the

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Speaker 1: four hundred meter relay, and the broad jump which is

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Speaker 1: now called the long jump. And those last two events

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Speaker 1: are especially notable, the four dred relay because Owens and

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Speaker 1: his fellow black American teammate Ralph Metcalfe, we're not supposed

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Speaker 1: is to compete in it at all. There were two

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Speaker 1: American Jewish athletes, Marty Glickman, who we quoted earlier, and

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Speaker 1: Sam Stoller they were pulled out at the last minute

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Speaker 1: by Avery Brundage, and it's possible that Owens and Mattcalf

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Speaker 1: were substituted because they were the team's fastest sprinters, but

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Speaker 1: it's also possible that Glickman and Stoller were pulled out

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Speaker 1: because they were Jewish, and Brundage may not have wanted

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Speaker 1: to offend Hitler with a Jewish victory. The other event,

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Speaker 1: the broad jump, is really notable because Owens was coached

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Speaker 1: on and encouraged by his top German competitor, Loots Long.

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Speaker 1: Footage of Long rushing to congratulate and hug Owens really

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Speaker 1: contrast with the more familiar scenes of Hitler watching Owen's

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Speaker 1: victories disapprovingly. And Long and Owens stayed friends until Long's

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Speaker 1: death in action at the Allied invasion of Sicily. Owens

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Speaker 1: later said, quote, it took a lot of courage for

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Speaker 1: him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can

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Speaker 1: melt down all the medals and cups I have and

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty four caret

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Speaker 1: friendship that I felt for Looks Long at that moment,

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Speaker 1: Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace, and I

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Speaker 1: would urge you, guys, if you're going to look up

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Speaker 1: one video clip from this Olympics, that's the one to

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Speaker 1: to see if you sort of want to more stirring,

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Speaker 1: heartwarming sort of Olympic moment. So the American press loved

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Speaker 1: the long Owens friendship as much as as we do still,

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Speaker 1: but they also devoted a lot of coverage to the

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Speaker 1: fact that Hitler didn't shake Owens's hand. It was considered

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Speaker 1: a huge snub at the time, even though it's kind

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Speaker 1: of more of a myth and truth in reality. Hitler

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Speaker 1: had already been taken to task by the IOC the

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Speaker 1: very first day of competition for leaving after all of

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Speaker 1: the German competitors had been eliminated in the final round.

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Speaker 1: For that day, he had only shook the hands of

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Speaker 1: a few athletes, all of them were either German or finish,

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Speaker 1: and the IOC basically said, police, don't do that. Either

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Speaker 1: shake everybody's hands or shake no one's hands. He decided

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Speaker 1: to shake nobody's hand publicly, and Owens himself later said

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Speaker 1: kind of um, not directly challenging this myth that had

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Speaker 1: been built up about the handshake, but he said quote

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Speaker 1: it was all right with me. I didn't go to

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Speaker 1: Berlin to shake hands with him anyway. All I know

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Speaker 1: is that I'm here now. And Hitler isn't the bigger

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Speaker 1: issue for Owens though, really, and a lot of the

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Speaker 1: African American athletes, wasn't that Hitler didn't acknowledge them. That

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Speaker 1: was just a temporary issue. It was that they weren't

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Speaker 1: acknowledged back home. None of the black medalists were invited

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Speaker 1: to the White House or congratulated by President Roosevelt. According

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Speaker 1: to Smithsonian Magazine and UM, a lot of the last

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Speaker 1: famous ones just kind of had to end up slipping

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Speaker 1: into obscurity. Owens ended up doing stunt races. He would

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Speaker 1: race horses, he would race cars. Eventually, though he did

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Speaker 1: become a pr man, a motivational speaker, somebody who was

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Speaker 1: able to make a living from his Olympic record. I

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Speaker 1: really liked one thing he said about jogging. Though. He

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Speaker 1: was asked, as an older man whether he still enjoyed jogging,

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Speaker 1: and he said, quote, I don't jog because I can't

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Speaker 1: run flat footed. It just shows you how fast somebody

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Speaker 1: would be if you can only run on your toes.

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Speaker 1: Despite Owen's story, though, and the victories of the other

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Speaker 1: black US medalists and the competition of Jewish athletes from

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Speaker 1: the US and Europe. Hitler clearly saw the Olympics as

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Speaker 1: a victory. The closing ceremony featured Beethoven, searchlights, and blonde

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Speaker 1: dressed in white to represent competing nations. German athletes won

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Speaker 1: the most medals of anyone, and the organization of the

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Speaker 1: event was praised highly. Yeah, they actually won the most

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Speaker 1: medals by far, to almost double that of the U

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Speaker 1: s which was number two. UM and it did work

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Speaker 1: in the pr sense to The New York Times even

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Speaker 1: said that the games put Germany quote back in the

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Speaker 1: fold of nations. And Hitler thought that things had gone

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Speaker 1: so well and that everybody approved of the game so highly.

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Speaker 1: He fully expected that after the nineteen forty Games, which

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Speaker 1: were already slated to take place in Tokyo, the Olympics

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Speaker 1: would take place in Berlin forever. There wouldn't be any

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Speaker 1: other cities that hosted the Olympics. UM, just Berlin year

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Speaker 1: after year after year. Reminded me a little bit of

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Speaker 1: our early discussion of the modern Olympics, and in Paris

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Speaker 1: and Athens and debates about where the Olympics should happen.

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Speaker 1: But that's a that's a bold opinion and a lot

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Speaker 1: of confidence there. Some people, though, saw how hoodwinked the

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Speaker 1: world had been during this time, and how a major

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Speaker 1: opportunity to censure the Nazi regime before the war was

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Speaker 1: basically lost. Others feared the end of the charade. US

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Speaker 1: Ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd wrote that Jews were

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Speaker 1: expecting the end of the Games with fear and trembling.

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Speaker 1: Just two days after the Games ended, the head of

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Speaker 1: the Olympic village, who was of Jewish descent, was dismissed

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Speaker 1: from military service and killed himself. Yeah. So, so people

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Speaker 1: were afraid what the back to business kind of regime

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Speaker 1: would be like now that the world had gone home.

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Speaker 1: What was regular life going to be like. One example

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Speaker 1: of this kind of return to normal being intolerable for

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Speaker 1: people's Gretel Bergmann, the high jumper who we mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: who was used as an example of how Germans were

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Speaker 1: including Jews on their teams and then was ultimately booted

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Speaker 1: off the team at the last minute. She immigrated to

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Speaker 1: the United States just a year after the Games. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: only two Jewish athletes competed for Germany. One was Rudy Ball.

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Speaker 1: He competed in ice hockey in the Winter Games, back

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Speaker 1: when the country would host both the Winter and the

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Speaker 1: Summer Games. The other was Helene Meyer, who was a

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Speaker 1: half Jewish blonde. You know, she was considered to look

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Speaker 1: very area. Uh. She competed in fencing. She actually had

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Speaker 1: already fled Germany before the Games, but came back to compete.

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Speaker 1: Saluted Hitler, ultimately left again. I think you can look

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Speaker 1: at a lot of these athletes stories and again, the

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Speaker 1: Holocaust Memorial Museum has a really sad page talking about

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Speaker 1: a lot of Olympians from as early as the first

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Speaker 1: Games and their fate during the Holocaust. Um. But a

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Speaker 1: bigger picture thing to think about, too is that this

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Speaker 1: was the last Olympics for a very long time. The

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Speaker 1: of course, the nineteen forty Tokyo Games didn't happen, the

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Speaker 1: nineteen four Games didn't happen. So it's not on the

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Speaker 1: same scale, of course as people losing their lives. But

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Speaker 1: one thing I can't help thinking about is that your

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Speaker 1: professional athletic window is pretty narrow, um, and if you

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Speaker 1: weren't able to compete in this game's whether because you

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Speaker 1: protested it, you boycotted it, or you weren't allowed to

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Speaker 1: it very likely would have been your very last chance

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Speaker 1: because you weren't going to get another one for twelve years.

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Speaker 1: Bringing it back to athletics a little bit again, like

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Speaker 1: he said, Um, we have a quote from Owens on

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Speaker 1: preparing to run the one. He said, it's a nervous,

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Speaker 1: terrible feeling you feel as you stand there, as if

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Speaker 1: your legs can't carry the weight of your body. Your

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Speaker 1: stomach isn't there, and your mouth is dry, and your

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Speaker 1: hands are wet with perspiration, and you begin to think

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Speaker 1: in terms of all those years that you've worked, in

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Speaker 1: my particular case, the one hundred meters, as you look

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Speaker 1: down the field one hundred nine yards two feet away,

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Speaker 1: and recognizing that after eight years of hard work, this

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Speaker 1: is the point that I had reached and that all

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Speaker 1: was going to be over in ten seconds. Those are

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Speaker 1: the great moments in the lives of individuals. So I

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Speaker 1: thought that was a good way to wrap this up,

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Speaker 1: because it is an individual story as much as it

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Speaker 1: is a story of forty nine countries coming from around

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Speaker 1: the world to compete in Berlin. Yeah, and you can't

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Speaker 1: really separate those stories. You can't tell Owen's story without

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Speaker 1: telling the story of these very unique games and what

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Speaker 1: he had to go through. So we realize time. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: which is why we did that. Thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out

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Speaker 1: of the archive, if you heard an email address or

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Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar over the course

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Speaker 1: of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current

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Speaker 1: email address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com.

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Speaker 1: Our old health stuff works email address no longer works,

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Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at

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Speaker 1: missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show

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Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff You Missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows. M H