Jesse Owens is arguably the most famous Olympian of all time. The story of the African-American Athlete winning four gold medals in the hostile environment of Nazi Berlin captured the imagination of the world. Owens dashed to 100m, 200m and 4x100m gold medals and even added the long jump gold to complete his collection. One year earlier, at the Big Ten Championship, in what is considered track and field's greatest day ever, he sprinted and jumped to five world records, while tying another,. His long jump record, 8.13m, lasted 25 years and 79 days; the longest standing world record of the century. His 8.06m long jump in Berlin was better than 14 of the 21 medal winning performances of the next four decades!

While African-American Jesse Owens was mocking Nazi Aryan-superiority theories with his four victories in Berlin, his long jump opponent, Germany's silver-medalist Luz Long, was portrayed in the press as the embodiment of racist Nazi ill-spirit. This was far removed from the truth. In fact, Long, ashamed by the Berlin crowd's reception of Owens, supported him throughout the competition with friendship. After Owen's victory, Long was the first to congratulate him as Hitler watched on disapprovingly. Owens and Long kept up a correspondence after the Games. When Long was killed in battle in 1943, Owens began a life-long correspondence with Long's son.