The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad and commonly known as Berlin 1936, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona at the 29th IOC Session on 26 April 1931. The 1936 Games marked the second and most recent time the International Olympic Committee gathered to vote in a city that was bidding to host those Games. Later rule modifications forbade cities hosting the bid vote from being awarded the games.
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games.
Martinus Bernardus "Tinus" Osendarp was a Dutch sprint runner.
Ralph Harold Metcalfe Sr. was an American track and field sprinter and politician. He jointly held the world record in the 100-meter dash and placed second in that event in two Olympics, first to Eddie Tolan in 1932 at Los Angeles and then to Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Metcalfe won four Olympic medals and was regarded as the world's fastest human in 1934 and 1935. He later went into politics in the city of Chicago and served in the United States Congress for four terms in the 1970s as a Democrat from Illinois.
Michael George Klim, OAM is a Polish-born Australian swimmer, Olympic gold medallist, world champion, and former world record-holder of the 1990s and 2000s. He is known as the creator of straight arm freestyle.
Martin Irving Glickman was an American radio announcer who was famous for his broadcasts of the New York Knicks basketball games and the football games of the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
The 4 × 100 metres relay or sprint relay is an athletics track event run in lanes over one lap of the track with four runners completing 100 metres each. The first runners must begin in the same stagger as for the individual 400 m race. Each runner carries a relay baton. Before 2018, the baton had to be passed within a 20 m changeover box, preceded by a 10-metre acceleration zone. With a rule change effective November 1, 2017, that zone was modified to include the acceleration zone as part of the passing zone, making the entire zone 30 metres in length. The outgoing runner cannot touch the baton until it has entered the zone, and the incoming runner cannot touch it after it has left the zone. The zone is usually marked in yellow, frequently using lines, triangles or chevrons. While the rule book specifies the exact positioning of the marks, the colours and style are only "recommended". While most legacy tracks will still have the older markings, the rule change still uses existing marks. Not all governing body jurisdictions have adopted the rule change.
The United States competed at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The Americans finished second in the medal table behind the hosts. 359 competitors, 313 men and 46 women, took part in 127 events in 21 sports.
Dean Bartlett Cromwell, nicknamed "Maker of Champions", was an American athletic coach in multiple sports, principally at the University of Southern California (USC). He was the head coach of the USC track team from 1909 to 1948, excepting 1914 and 1915, and guided the team to 12 NCAA team national championships and 34 individual NCAA titles. He was the head coach for the U.S. track team at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, and assistant head coach for the U.S. track team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Lawson "Robbie" N. Robertson was considered one of the more accomplished American track coaches of the first half of the twentieth century. From 1904-1936, he was with the American team at every Olympics with the exception of 1916 when the Olympics were cancelled due to WWI. He coached Track and Field for the Irish-American Athletic Club in Queens, New York from 1909–16, and then for the University of Pennsylvania from 1916-47. He was U.S. Olympic Assistant Track coach in 1912 and 1920 and was head coach for the American Track and Field Team in four Olympics from 1924-36.
The Jesse Owens Story is a 1984 American two-part, four-hour made-for-television biographical film about the black athlete Jesse Owens. Dorian Harewood plays the Olympic gold-winning athlete. The drama won a 1985 Primetime Emmy Award and was nominated for two more. It originally premiered in syndication on July 9 and 10, 1984 as part of Operation Prime Time's syndicated programming.
The men's long jump was an event at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, United States. There were 31 participating athletes from 25 nations, with two qualifying groups, and the final held on August 6, 1984. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Carl Lewis of the United States, the nation's 17th gold medal in the event. It was Lewis's second gold of the Games as he tried (successfully) to match Jesse Owens's 1936 quadruple. It was also the first of Lewis's four consecutive gold medals in the long jump. Gary Honey gave Australia its first men's long jump medal since 1948; Giovanni Evangelisti won Italy's first-ever medal in the event.
Gary Steven Ilman was an American former competition swimmer, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and former world record-holder in two relay events.
Sam Stoller was an American athlete who specialized in sprinting and long jumping. He tied the world record in the 60-yard dash in 1936. Stoller is best known for his exclusion from the American 4 × 100 relay team at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The 2-man substitution triggered widespread speculation that he and Marty Glickman—the only two Jews on the U.S. track team—were excluded because U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Avery Brundage wanted to avoid embarrassing Adolf Hitler by having two Jewish athletes win gold medals. Stoller vowed at the time that he would never run again, but he returned in 1937 to win both the Big Ten Conference and NCAA championships in the 100-yard dash. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1937, Stoller briefly went into a singing and acting career as "Singin' Sammy Stoller."
The Michigan Wolverines men's track and field team is the intercollegiate track and field program representing the University of Michigan. The school competes in the Big Ten Conference in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
The men's 100 metres sprint event at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, were held at Olympiastadion on 2 and 3 August. The final was won by American Jesse Owens, and teammate Ralph Metcalfe repeated as silver medalist. Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands won that nation's first medal in the men's 100 metres, a bronze.
The men's 200 metres sprint event at the 1936 Olympic Games took place between August 4 and August 5. There were 44 athletes from 22 nations competing. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The final was won by African American Jesse Owens, with silver going to Mack Robinson. Owens thus reached 3 gold medals in 1936, with the sprint relay still to come. The Netherlands earned its first medal in the men's 200 metres with Tinus Osendarp's bronze.
Kenneth Owen Merten is an American former competition swimmer, three-time Pan American Games medalist, and former world record-holder.
The 4 × 100 metres relay at the Summer Olympics is the shortest track relay event held at the multi-sport event. The men's relay has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since 1912 and the women's event has been continuously held since the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. It is the most prestigious 4×100 m relay race at elite level.
The 1936 United States Olympic trials for track and field were held in July 1936 and decided the United States team for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The trials for men and women were held separately; men's events were held at Randall's Island Stadium in New York City on July 11 and July 12, while women competed at Brown Stadium in Providence, Rhode Island on July 4. The top three athletes in each event qualified for the Olympic Games. The women's meeting also served as the annual outdoor track and field championships of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU); the men's AAU championships were held separately a week before the Olympic trials.
