The athlete who caused Hitler to flee the stadium: Who is Jesse Owens?

Owens, who won 4 gold medals in the 100 m, 200 meters, 4×100 meters, and long jump at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, became famous as "The athlete who caused Hitler to flee the stadium."

At the Berlin Olympics, Owens ran the 100 meters in 10.06 seconds and the 200 meters in 20.7 seconds, and reached a time of 8.06 in the long jump.

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games.

The USA's 4×100 relay team, including Owens, won the gold medal with a time of 39.8. Owens, who was awarded the "Medal of Freedom" by the US President in 1976, died on March 31, 1980.

While Owens succeeded in running 100 meters in 10.3 seconds and 200 meters in 20.3 seconds, he achieved his best time in the long jump with 8.28 meters.

How did Hitler escape?

"Sometimes just running is enough to destroy an ideology."

It was only three years before the start of World War II, but it felt like war was at the doorstep.

Racism was on the rise in the old continent.

The date is 1936.

Germany was being destroyed by the Nazis, fascism had spread all over the country.

Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933, was elevated to the head of state as "Führer" a year later.

The most notorious dictator of the 20th century intended to proudly present to the world the new Germany he set out to create.

The opportunity to prove the power and invincibility (!) of the Aryan race was the Olympics, which had been serving humanity since ancient Greece.

Hitler took action to use the 1936 Olympics for propaganda purposes.

Actually, this was not an idea that came to his mind.

Already before Hitler came to power, in 1931, the International Olympic Committee had already decided to hold the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

This decision was a step taken to eliminate Germany's disengagement from the international community, which was exhausted and defeated by World War I, and to relieve the unnamed exclusion to some extent.

The decision-makers were perhaps not aware at the time that they were actually approving the most politicized sports organization in world history.

The completely changing political climate in Germany from 1931 to 1936 led to the first boycott decision in history regarding the venue of the modern Olympic games.

The United States and many countries in Europe opposed holding the games in Nazi Germany on the grounds of human rights violations.

However, the boycott movement and objections could not provide continuity.

The announcement that 49 countries would send their teams to Germany was also clear evidence that Hitler had struck a propaganda blow.

For Hitler, summarized in seven words, it was: "The superiority of the Aryan race and the explanation of physical prowess."

These two topics, which Hitler constantly worked on and idealized after he came to power, found their counterpart in the sculptures of German artists, in the army, on the street, in short, in almost every field that can catch the eye.

One of the people who would overturn the perverse proposition that "the Aryan race is invincible" was Jesse Owens, the youngest of a family of 10 children, who was also ostracized in his country, the United States.

Owens was a 22-year-old black young man when he came to Berlin from the United States, a country where racism is at its highest, to compete.

He would break all records in the 100 meters, 200 meters, 4x100 meters, and long jump and win 4 gold medals.

When he won his first race on August 3, 1936, and took the first place on the podium that Hitler had reserved for German athletes in his mind, there was no chaos as expected.

The Führer did not leave the stadium the moment he saw that one of his own blood, especially a non-white athlete, was worthy of the gold medal.

Because he had already done this the day before and did not attend the ceremony, citing his busy schedule.

Owens was only one of 19 black Americans to perform in Berlin.

The first black athlete to win was Cornelius Cooper Johnson, who won the high jump on August 2.

The African-American athlete was the first athlete to show Hitler the absurdity of the Aryan race at the Olympics in Berlin.

The person Hitler could not tolerate and left the stadium for was Johnson, not Owens.

It is now known to everyone that athletes like Johnson and Owens are empty inside, but they are just running and jumping and striking a blow at an ideology that is preparing to take the world captive.