Jesse Owens 1936 Berlin Olympic Gold Medal

Four golds in Berlin

The Games of the XI Olympiad ran in Berlin from August 1 to 16, 1936. They were the first Games carried on live television and the first with a torch relay from Olympia, and Hitler's government meant them to showcase a resurgent Germany. In the months before, a movement to boycott the Games had gained ground in the United States; Owens himself was persuaded at one point to say the U.S. should withdraw if minorities in Germany were being discriminated against, but the team went.

Owens won the 100 meters on August 3 in 10.3 seconds, a tenth ahead of his teammate Ralph Metcalfe. On August 4 he won the long jump with 8.06 meters. On August 5 he won the 200 meters in 20.7 seconds, beating Mack Robinson, older brother of Jackie Robinson. On August 9 he added a fourth gold in the 4 x 100 meter relay after coaches replaced Jewish-American sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller with Owens and Metcalfe; with Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff they set a world record of 39.8 seconds.

No athlete matched four golds in those same events until Carl Lewis in 1984. Owens was the most successful athlete of the Games, and his victories are remembered as a direct rebuke to the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy.

The famous story of a Hitler snub is more complicated than legend. After the first day, Olympic officials told Hitler to greet every medalist or none, and he stopped public congratulations. Owens himself later said that Hitler waved at him, and in October 1936 told a rally in Kansas City: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."

The Buckeye Bullet

James Cleveland Owens was born September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama, the youngest of ten children of a sharecropper and the grandson of an enslaved man. His family moved to Cleveland when he was nine, and a teacher who misheard "J. C." in his Southern accent wrote down "Jesse."

At Ohio State, where he got no scholarship and had to live off campus with other Black athletes, he won eight individual NCAA titles, four in 1935 and four in 1936, still the most ever. On May 25, 1935, at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, he set five world records and tied a sixth in about 45 minutes, a feat called the greatest 45 minutes in sport. His long jump world record from that year, 8.13 meters, stood until 1960.

Berlin did not make him rich. After the Games, U.S. amateur officials suspended him when he refused to keep running an exhausting exhibition tour. Back home he could not enter the Waldorf Astoria's front door for his own reception, and he took jobs as a gas station attendant and playground janitor and raced against horses for cash. "I had four gold medals," he said, "but you can't eat four gold medals."

Later honors came slowly: the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 and, after his death from lung cancer in Tucson on March 31, 1980, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1990.

A gift to Bojangles

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1878, was the best-known and highest-paid Black entertainer in America in the first half of the 20th century, famous for his stair dance and his films with Shirley Temple. After Owens came home, Robinson befriended him. Most job offers Owens had received were publicity stunts; Robinson found him real work within a few months and introduced him to his own manager, who booked Owens's paid exhibition races.

Owens gave Robinson one of his four gold medals as thanks. Robinson married his third wife, Elaine Plaines, in 1944, and died penniless in New York on November 25, 1949, his funeral paid for by Ed Sullivan. The medal stayed with his widow's family for more than six decades.

In late 2013 the estate of Elaine Plaines-Robinson consigned it to an online auction based in California that opened November 20. With about 36 hours to go the bid stood at $370,000; when bidding closed early on Sunday, December 8, 2013, after 30 bids, it had reached $1,466,574. Before the sale Owens's daughter, Marlene Owens Rankin, said the family hoped it would go to a museum or another place the public could see it. A portion of the proceeds went to the Jesse Owens Foundation.

The buyer was named in news reports as Ron Burkle, a Los Angeles investor and Pittsburgh Penguins co-owner who also owns William Faulkner's Nobel Prize medal and planned an educational tour of the pieces. One trade report said at the time that the buyer wished to remain anonymous.

Which medal is it?

Nobody knows which race or jump this medal was won for. The 1936 gold medals were not marked by event, and neither the medal nor its container carried any marking.

The other three originals are a puzzle too. The four Owens gold medals at Ohio State are replacements, made by the German government after Owens was said to have lost his originals. A second original surfaced in 2019 from the children of weightlifter John Terpak Sr., a 1936 Olympian who befriended Owens and received it from him. That medal sold at an online auction on December 7, 2019, for $615,000 with buyer's premium, after 11 bids on a $250,000 minimum. Reports after that sale said the whereabouts of the other two are unknown.

The 1936 Olympic gold medals carry Giuseppe Cassioli's "Trionfo" design, used on Summer Games medals from 1928 to 1968: Nike holding a palm and a winner's crown on the front, and a crowd carrying a champion on the back. Olympic golds have not been solid gold since 1912; from 1916 they were gilded silver. Described from the Terpak medal, they measure 55 mm and weigh 71 grams.

A record for the Olympics

The 2013 price broke the previous record for Olympic memorabilia, $865,000 paid in April 2012 for the silver cup awarded to the winner of the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896. It also passed the top price for a U.S. Olympic item, $657,250 for Mike Eruzione's 1980 Miracle on Ice jersey, and came to nearly five times the $310,700 paid in 2010 for Mark Wells's 1980 hockey gold medal.

The comparison with the Terpak medal shows how much this one's story counts. The two are the same award from the same Games, unmarked and indistinguishable by event, yet the Robinson medal brought more than twice as much six years earlier.

The numbers

100 m, Aug. 3, 1936

Gold, 10.3 seconds; Ralph Metcalfe second by 0.1

Long jump, Aug. 4, 1936

Gold, 8.06 m

200 m, Aug. 5, 1936

Gold, 20.7 seconds

4 x 100 m relay, Aug. 9, 1936

Gold, world record 39.8 seconds, with Ralph Metcalfe, Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff

Big Ten Championships, May 25, 1935

Five world records set and one tied in about 45 minutes

Long jump world record

8.13 m (1935), stood until 1960

NCAA titles

8 individual (4 in 1935, 4 in 1936)

Ohio State 1936

Won all 42 events he entered

Timeline

1. Sep 12, 1913

   James Cleveland Owens is born in Oakville, Alabama.

2. 1933

   Owens enrolls at Ohio State.

3. May 25, 1935

   Owens sets five world records and ties a sixth in about 45 minutes at the Big Ten Championships.

4. Aug 1, 1936

   The Berlin Olympics open.

5. Aug 3, 1936

   Owens wins the 100 meters in 10.3 seconds.

6. Aug 4, 1936

   Owens wins the long jump.

7. Aug 5, 1936

   Owens wins the 200 meters in 20.7 seconds.

8. Aug 9, 1936

   Owens wins his fourth gold in the world-record 4 x 100 meter relay.

9. Oct 15, 1936

   At a Kansas City rally, Owens says it was his own president, not Hitler, who snubbed him.

10. 1944

    Bill Robinson marries Elaine Plaines, whose estate would later sell the medal.

11. Nov 25, 1949

    Bill "Bojangles" Robinson dies in New York.

12. 1976

    Owens receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

13. Mar 31, 1980

    Owens dies in Tucson, Arizona.

14. 1990

    Owens is awarded the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously.

15. Nov 20, 2013

    The Robinson medal goes up for auction online.

16. Dec 8, 2013

    The medal sells for $1,466,574, a record for Olympic memorabilia.

17. Dec 7, 2019

    A second Owens gold medal, from the Terpak family, sells for $615,000.

The world in 1936

• Mar 1, 1936

  Construction of Hoover Dam is completed.

• Jun 10, 1936

  Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind is published.

• Jun 19, 1936

  Max Schmeling knocks out Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium.

• Jul 11, 1936

  The Triborough Bridge opens in New York.

• Aug 1, 1936

  The Berlin Olympics open, the first Games shown on live television and the first with a torch relay.

• Nov 3, 1936

  Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection in a landslide over Alf Landon, whom Owens campaigned for.

• Nov 12, 1936

  The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens.

• Nov 23, 1936

  Life magazine begins weekly publication.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Jesse Owens 1936 Berlin Olympic Gold Medal is number 57 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (56 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• No one knows which of Owens's four events this medal was won for: 1936 gold medals were not marked by event.
• The four Owens gold medals displayed at Ohio State are replacements made by the German government.
• A second original Owens gold medal sold in 2019 for $615,000, less than half what the Robinson medal brought in 2013.
• Olympic gold medals have not been solid gold since 1912; Owens's were gilded silver.
• Owens's four golds in Berlin were not matched in the same events until Carl Lewis did it in 1984.
• Bill Robinson, who received the medal, died penniless; his funeral was paid for by Ed Sullivan.
• The buyer reported in 2013 also owns William Faulkner's Nobel Prize medal.