Eighty years after Jesse Owens won four medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, his daughter Marlene Owens Rankin, says Germany's Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refused to shake her father's hand
Jesse Owens
Berlin: Eighty years after Jesse Owens won four medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, his daughter Marlene Owens Rankin, says Germany's Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refused to shake her father's hand.
Jesse Owens
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The controversial Berlin Olympics opened on August 1, 1936 to much fanfare with Reich's Chancellor Hitler hoping to showcase the best of the Aryan race.
Owens ruined Hitler's plans as the black American sprinter won gold in the 100 metres, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump gold over six magical days in Berlin.
His achievements made a mockery of the Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy and according to sporting folklore, Hitler refused to shake Owens hand, despite the Americans historic display.
Owens died of lung cancer, aged 66, in 1980, but his daughter says as far as she is concerned, her father never shook Hitler's hand.
Owens Rankin said her father always gave one answer when asked whether he was congratulated by Hitler in Berlin, three years before the start of World War II which ended with the Nazi leader's suicide in May 1945.
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