Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm fair A Dowdy and I'm Deblina truck reboarding and
Speaker 1: Deblina and I are continuing on with our Olympic theories.
Speaker 1: And when I first started thinking, all right, we're going
Speaker 1: to cover some sports Olympics history for this twelve Olympic Game,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about a podcast on African American track
Speaker 1: star Jesse Owens, who of course won four gold medals
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirty six Berlin Games and very famously
Speaker 1: proved that Hitler's ideas of Arian superiority we're just playing wrong.
Speaker 1: But owens story is so personally compelling. It's the main
Speaker 1: thing that most folks, I think, have taken away from
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty six Games. It's what it's what you
Speaker 1: think of if you're thinking of the Berlin Olympics, and
Speaker 1: if you look up a clip of Owen's flying past
Speaker 1: his competitors or ending proudly for the national anthem, it
Speaker 1: seems really easy to believe that the thirty six Games
Speaker 1: must have just been a complete failure for the Nazis
Speaker 1: and a huge embarrassment for Hitler. Yeah, but once you
Speaker 1: start reading more about the Berlin Games, which are sometimes
Speaker 1: called the Nazi Olympics, you realize that that's not really
Speaker 1: the case. What's often overlooked is how successful the games
Speaker 1: were in terms of Nazi propaganda. For example, they bolstered
Speaker 1: German pride, They threw off the suspicions of the international community,
Speaker 1: at least temporarily and in a more long lasting way,
Speaker 1: and away less tied up with the war to come.
Speaker 1: They shaped the modern Olympic Games. Frank DeFord sports Illustrated
Speaker 1: writer and NPR commentator calls them quote the most fascinating
Speaker 1: and historically influential games. Frank affords the sports too, So
Speaker 1: that's a pretty high statement. So today we're going to
Speaker 1: be looking at both Jesse Owens story and the story
Speaker 1: of the nineteen thirty six Games as the whole. The boycotts,
Speaker 1: the propaganda, the smoke and mirrors, the athletes, whether they
Speaker 1: were African, American or German Jewish. And one thing just
Speaker 1: just consider before we even get into this is why
Speaker 1: was the United States there? Why was Great Britain or
Speaker 1: France there? And it's something that we're going to be
Speaker 1: discussing throughout the podcast. So first, let's start out with
Speaker 1: the initial irony of the story, which was the International
Speaker 1: Olympic Game Committee awarded Berlin the Games in one as
Speaker 1: a sign of acceptance. So it was a welcome back
Speaker 1: in a way to the international community. Right. The second
Speaker 1: irony here, Hitler, who became chancellor two years after this decision,
Speaker 1: wasn't really interested in the Olympics at all at first.
Speaker 1: Now and and today, because Hitler's reputation is so tied
Speaker 1: up to pageantry in these mass public displays, think Lenny
Speaker 1: Roof install her films, it seems odd that Hitler wouldn't
Speaker 1: have immediately seen the Games as an opportunity for a
Speaker 1: grand public show. But according to the US Holocaust Memorial Useum,
Speaker 1: he initially just didn't see the appeal of the Olympic vision.
Speaker 1: And that makes sense too. After all, it's about internationalism,
Speaker 1: it's about fair competition, it's something that's meant to promote
Speaker 1: peace between nations. You can you can see how Hitler
Speaker 1: wouldn't be into that. But Joseph Goebbel's, Hitler's minister of propaganda,
Speaker 1: ultimately convinced him that the Games would make great propaganda
Speaker 1: and prepared German youth for war. As Goebbel's himself said
Speaker 1: in thirty three, German sport has only one task, to
Speaker 1: strengthen the character of the German people, imbuing it with
Speaker 1: the fighting spirit and steadfast camaraderie necessary in the struggle
Speaker 1: for its existence. That doesn't make you want to break
Speaker 1: out the ball and play a game, So no, it
Speaker 1: takes some of the fun out of it, I think.
Speaker 1: But right from the start the Nazis controlled the games.
Speaker 1: The German Olympic committee was supervised by the Reich Sports Office,
Speaker 1: and a new stadium was built in Berlin. Colorful posters
Speaker 1: drew comparisons between ancient Greece and modern Germany and featured
Speaker 1: Arean ideal athletes. So it was a very political thing
Speaker 1: right from the start. But to make that arean ideal
Speaker 1: that they were glorifying on the posters a reality for
Speaker 1: the Berlin Olympics, Jewish athletes, of course, had to be
Speaker 1: excluded from competition, and Hitler's anti Semitic policies, which started
Speaker 1: as soon as he assumed power, also extended to sports
Speaker 1: right from the start, and one very high level example
Speaker 1: of this was the high jumper Gretel Bergmann, who found
Speaker 1: herself kicked out of her athletic club in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 1: She was a star athlete, participated in lots of different
Speaker 1: sports and had been linked to this athletic club for years.
Speaker 1: Immediately kicked out, she started training with a club under
Speaker 1: the Jewish Association of War Veterans, with a lot of
Speaker 1: other Jewish athletes as well as Gypsy athletes. Um But
Speaker 1: in many cases these alternate groups for for Jewish athletes
Speaker 1: to practice and compete in just didn't have as good equipment,
Speaker 1: didn't have as good facilities, They were subpar, and ultimately
Speaker 1: Bergmond was strung along until just before the Games, when
Speaker 1: she was ultimately thrown off the team. The international sports
Speaker 1: community caught onto that discrimination, though, and talk started focusing
Speaker 1: on relocating the games. Perhaps. The president of the American
Speaker 1: Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, even said that quote the very
Speaker 1: foundation of the modern Olympic revival will be undermined if
Speaker 1: individual countries are allowed to restrict participation by reason of class, creed,
Speaker 1: or race. So that takes a pretty strong stance on this.
Speaker 1: This is not about your politics. It's about an international
Speaker 1: sporting event. But unfortunately Brundage had a bit too much
Speaker 1: sway in this matter, because in nineteen thirty four, with
Speaker 1: a position like that out there, he was invited to
Speaker 1: Berlin to investigate the situation for himself, and in a
Speaker 1: tightly managed visit, you know, only think exactly what people
Speaker 1: wanted him to see. He inspected facilities, met with athletes,
Speaker 1: and came home convinced that Jewish athletes weren't being discriminated
Speaker 1: against after all, that that things were going to be
Speaker 1: fine in Germany, and that Berlin should certainly go ahead
Speaker 1: with the game. Yeah, but not everyone was so convinced.
Speaker 1: Many American newspapers, for example, called for a boycott. Much
Speaker 1: of the Jewish community was in favor of skipping the games,
Speaker 1: as were many US Catholic leaders. One of the most
Speaker 1: prominent was Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, who was president of the
Speaker 1: Amateur Athletic Union, and he argued that Germany was violating
Speaker 1: key Olympic rules and that attending the games would basically
Speaker 1: endorse the Reich, something that became more and more evident
Speaker 1: when the Nuremberg Laws were announced in nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 1: stripping Jews of citizenship. So it wasn't it was clearly
Speaker 1: not just about athletes. It was a statement about the
Speaker 1: whole regime, about the whole country at this point, But
Speaker 1: by December nineteen thirty five, after a campaign from Brunage
Speaker 1: suggesting as far as uh the boycott being part of
Speaker 1: a Jewish communist conspiracy quote that's that's how far he
Speaker 1: took this, the Amateur Athletic Union finally voted down a boycott.
Speaker 1: And I find it interesting that people, up until the
Speaker 1: very end it saw it both ways. Bringedge, for instance,
Speaker 1: believe that the boycott was politicizing the games, and the
Speaker 1: games were not something meant to be political. Those in
Speaker 1: favor of the boycott, though, really saw the games themselves
Speaker 1: as political and that was the problem. Um So, for example,
Speaker 1: a month before the Amateur Athletic Union vote, the Committee
Speaker 1: on Fair Play and Sports said, quote, sport is prostituted
Speaker 1: when sport loses its independent and democratic character and becomes
Speaker 1: a political institution. Nazi Germany is endeavoring to use the
Speaker 1: Eleventh Olympia to serve the necessities and interests of the
Speaker 1: Nazi regime rather than the Olympic ideals. So strong feelings
Speaker 1: both ways, very strong feelings. The American Athletic Unions vote
Speaker 1: kind of set the tone internationally as well. Though there
Speaker 1: had been boycott interest in France and Great Britain and Sweden,
Speaker 1: the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, nothing had panned out. A few
Speaker 1: alternative games were planned, one on Long Island one in Barcelona,
Speaker 1: but these had to be canceled because of the one
Speaker 1: in Barcelona at least had to be canceled because of
Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War. But individual athletes could have, of
Speaker 1: course still boycott the games if they chose to so.
Speaker 1: Several Jewish American athletes did so, including much of the
Speaker 1: Long Island University basketball team, considered one of the best
Speaker 1: teams in the country at the time, plus sprinters from
Speaker 1: Tulane and Harvard. There was um we already mentioned the
Speaker 1: US Holocaust Memorial Museum site. They have a lot of
Speaker 1: interviews with athletes, American athletes and German athletes, and one
Speaker 1: is with sprinter Milton Green, who was the captain of
Speaker 1: the Harvard team, and he decided to boycott after his
Speaker 1: rabbi called him called him in to tell him all
Speaker 1: about what was happening to Jews in Germany, and he
Speaker 1: felt like this was the right thing. To do, and
Speaker 1: he talked about how surprised he was that his decision
Speaker 1: to boycott. He thought it would be a big deal.
Speaker 1: He was one of the best runners in the country.
Speaker 1: It didn't really resonate with anybody. Nobody really was even
Speaker 1: aware that he had chosen to boycott. And he talked
Speaker 1: also about how every Olympic that he had watched since then,
Speaker 1: he would picture himself competing in his familiar events, missing
Speaker 1: that chance, not really feeling bad or regretful about what
Speaker 1: he had done, but just sort of wondering what could
Speaker 1: have been to it seemed well, missing that chance, and
Speaker 1: then on top of it, feeling like nobody was really
Speaker 1: paying attention. I'm sure it is like twice his heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: But the African American community, however, had a very different
Speaker 1: take on this boycott. They saw it as hypocritical, since
Speaker 1: for many blacks in the US, the idea of separate
Speaker 1: and unequal sporting opportunities was pretty much old news. There
Speaker 1: was a quote in the Philadelphia Tribune right before the
Speaker 1: Amateur Athletic Union vote that went quote, the Amateur Athletic
Speaker 1: Union shouts against the cruelties of the other nations and
Speaker 1: the brutalities and foreign climates, but conveniently for gets the
Speaker 1: things that sit on its own doorstep. And plus there
Speaker 1: was sort of an indication of what was gonna happen
Speaker 1: if black athletes were allowed to go. Black victories would
Speaker 1: show people just how wrong that area and ideal was.
Speaker 1: Eighteen Black Olympians ended up competing on the US team
Speaker 1: and ten mettled, so it was worth it for them
Speaker 1: to not boycott, and and something to that sort of
Speaker 1: ties into that Jesse Owens victory was expected, or some
Speaker 1: of his victories were expected. You know, he was the
Speaker 1: fastest runner in the country, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: other athletes were clear shoeance were for these competitions. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the black community knew if these guys were allowed to compete,
Speaker 1: they've had a very high chance of winning. Ultimately, though,
Speaker 1: you know, despite these um these attempts to boycott, despite
Speaker 1: these individual boycotts, forty nine nations chose to attend the games.
Speaker 1: But we need to talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: the games were like, why were they not the Olympics?
Speaker 1: And one thing to get out there is, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: they were incredibly impressive in every way. The athletes competing
Speaker 1: were dazzled, and that was that was part of the point.
Speaker 1: Impressed the athletes. They'll go home with a positive experience
Speaker 1: of the game. So just some examples of what made
Speaker 1: these games so impressive. The forty nine countries that attended.
Speaker 1: That was more countries than it ever participated before. The
Speaker 1: opening ceremonies also featured for the first time the lone
Speaker 1: runner carrying a torch that was lit in Olympia, and
Speaker 1: the games were televised for the first time. You could
Speaker 1: visit these viewing stations throughout Berlin to watch Zeppelin's race
Speaker 1: newsreels around Europe for updated coverage. Lenny reef Install filmed
Speaker 1: the games for the movie Olympia, which was released in
Speaker 1: and the German people were actually very welcoming. Marty Glickman,
Speaker 1: a Jewish American athlete who chose not to boycott, called
Speaker 1: it all a carnival though so of course, a lot
Speaker 1: of the success or the perceived success from the games
Speaker 1: was from what was concealed rather than what was promoted.
Speaker 1: So swastika's were bedecking all of the arenas and monuments,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the anti Semitic signs had come
Speaker 1: down around Berlin at least down the heavily traffic streets.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred Gypsies had been moved to a camp on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of town and just eighteen miles north of Berlin.
Speaker 1: The saxon Housen concentration camp was actually under construction during
Speaker 1: the games. I think I find this part maybe the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary aspect of this, that it was so close
Speaker 1: by um. Within months two of the closing ceremonies, that
Speaker 1: concentration camp was open began accepting Jova's witnesses and political opponents.
Speaker 1: So they were carrying on, just not so overtly in
Speaker 1: in Berlin. Gebbels was acutely aware of what needed to
Speaker 1: be hidden or avoided. Here. In the Pink Triangle episode,
Speaker 1: we talked about how owner was instructed to quote clean
Speaker 1: up the town before visitors arrived, but under no circumstances
Speaker 1: arrest gay foreigners under a paragraph one. So they hid
Speaker 1: that part of their policy during that time because they
Speaker 1: knew how people would view it. The same idea extended
Speaker 1: to the press. The Reich Press Chamber controlled all coverage
Speaker 1: and forbade stories focused on race or religion. So a
Speaker 1: quote from July ninety six, the racial point of view
Speaker 1: should not be used in any way in reporting sports results.
Speaker 1: Above all, negro should not be insensitively reported. Negros are
Speaker 1: American citizens and must be treated with respect as Americans,
Speaker 1: So don't publish anything that's gonna get get the whole
Speaker 1: country into trouble. That dictate, though specifically regarding African Americans,
Speaker 1: proved impossible for the German press to maintain. Though after
Speaker 1: the stunning success of the black members of the US
Speaker 1: track team, the pro Nazi paper are called the attack
Speaker 1: just couldn't resist calling the black members of the team
Speaker 1: quote auxiliaries. But to the rest of the world and
Speaker 1: including the German public, we gotta gotta say that the
Speaker 1: talent of the track team was really captivating, and Owens
Speaker 1: especially was a star. People were interested in in reading
Speaker 1: about them, even if pro Nazi papers were calling them auxiliary.
Speaker 1: So we've got to talk about the Owens story a
Speaker 1: little bit, just because he is the main figure of
Speaker 1: this games, and um, his his background makes his accomplishments
Speaker 1: all the more impressive. He was born in nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: He was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson
Speaker 1: of slaves. Born in Danville, Alabama, he moved to Cleveland
Speaker 1: when he was nine years old. Interestingly, his name was
Speaker 1: not His given name was not. Jesse was a nickname.
Speaker 1: He um told the teacher his initials were Tour j C.
Speaker 1: And in his Alabama accent, she mistook it for Jesse
Speaker 1: and and it's stuck. You gotta be careful of those
Speaker 1: accents when we're from the South. We know that. But
Speaker 1: he started racing at thirteen, and by his sophomore year
Speaker 1: of college at Ohio State, Jesse broke five world records
Speaker 1: and equaled a six in forty five minutes at his
Speaker 1: first Big Ten Championship with an injured back, he had
Speaker 1: been horsing around or wrestling with some of his fraternity
Speaker 1: brothers and couldn't even get dressed by himself, but he
Speaker 1: was able to break five world records. According to his
Speaker 1: New York Times obituary, the Big Ten commissioner Tug Wilson said, quote,
Speaker 1: he is a floating wonder, just like he had wings.
Speaker 1: So and we alluded to this earlier. Clearly, Jesse Owens
Speaker 1: was a favorite in the Berlin Games with that record.
Speaker 1: He had sat at the Big ten uh competition just
Speaker 1: a year before, and he really did deliver. He won
Speaker 1: the gold in the hundred meter, the two hundred meter,
Speaker 1: the four hundred meter relay, and the broad jump, which
Speaker 1: is now called the long jump. And those last two
Speaker 1: events are especially notable. The four hundred meter relay because
Speaker 1: Owens and his fellow black American teammate Ralph Metcalfe we're
Speaker 1: not supposed to compete in it at all. There were
Speaker 1: two American Jewish athletes, Marty Glickman, who we quoted earlier
Speaker 1: and Sam Stoller. They were pulled out at the last
Speaker 1: minute by Avery Brundage, and it's possible that Owens and
Speaker 1: metcalf were substituted because they were the team's fastest sprinters,
Speaker 1: but it's also possible that Glickman and Stoller were pulled
Speaker 1: out because they were Jewish and Brundage may not have
Speaker 1: wanted to offend Hitler with a Jewish victory. The other event,
Speaker 1: the broad jump, is really notable because Owens was coached
Speaker 1: on and encouraged by his top German competitor, Loots. Long
Speaker 1: footage of Long rushing to congratulate and hug Owens really
Speaker 1: contrast with the more familiar scenes of Hitler watching Owen's
Speaker 1: victories disapprovingly and long and Owens stayed friends until Long's
Speaker 1: death in action at the Allied invasion of Sicily. Owens
Speaker 1: later said, quote, it took a lot of courage for
Speaker 1: him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can
Speaker 1: melt down all the medals and cups I have and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty four Carett
Speaker 1: friendship that I felt for Looks Long at that moment,
Speaker 1: Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace, And I
Speaker 1: would urge you, guys, if you're going to look up
Speaker 1: one video clip from this Olympics, that's the one too,
Speaker 1: to see if he sort of want to a more stirring,
Speaker 1: heartwarming sort of Olympic moment. So the American press loved
Speaker 1: the Long Owens friendship as much as as we do still,
Speaker 1: but they also devoted a lot of coverage to the
Speaker 1: fact that Hitler didn't shake Owens's hand. It was considered
Speaker 1: a huge snub at the time, even though it's kind
Speaker 1: of more of a myth than truth. In reality. Hitler
Speaker 1: had already been taken to task by the IOC the
Speaker 1: very first day of competition for leaving after all of
Speaker 1: the German competitors had been eliminated in the final round.
Speaker 1: For that day, he had only shook the hands of
Speaker 1: a few athletes, all of them were either German or finish,
Speaker 1: and the IOC basically said, please don't do that. Either
Speaker 1: shake everybody these hands or shake no one's hands. He
Speaker 1: decided to shake nobody's hand publicly, and Owens himself later
Speaker 1: said kind of, um, not directly challenging this myth that
Speaker 1: had been built up about the handshake, but he said, quote,
Speaker 1: it was all right with me. I didn't go to
Speaker 1: Berlin to shake hands with him anyway. All I know
Speaker 1: is that I'm here now. And Hitler isn't the bigger
Speaker 1: issue for Owens though, really, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: African American athletes, wasn't that Hitler didn't acknowledge them. That
Speaker 1: was just a temporary issue. It was that they weren't
Speaker 1: acknowledged back home. None of the black medalists were invited
Speaker 1: to the White House or congratulated by President Roosevelt. According
Speaker 1: to Smithsonian Magazine, and um, a lot of the last
Speaker 1: famous ones just kind of had to end up slipping
Speaker 1: into obscurity. Owens ended up doing stunt races. He would
Speaker 1: race horses, he would race cars, Eventually, though, he did
Speaker 1: become a pr man, a motivational speaker, somebody who was
Speaker 1: able to make a living for his his Olympic record.
Speaker 1: I really liked one thing he said about jogging. Though.
Speaker 1: He was asked, as an older man whether he still
Speaker 1: enjoyed jogging, and he said, quote, I don't jog because
Speaker 1: I can't run flat footed. It just shows you how
Speaker 1: fast somebody would be if you can only run on
Speaker 1: your toes. Despite Owen's story, though, and the victories of
Speaker 1: the other black US medalists and the competition of Jewish
Speaker 1: athletes from the US and Europe, Hitler clearly saw the
Speaker 1: Olympics as a victory. The closing ceremony featured Beethoven, searchlights,
Speaker 1: and blonde dressed in white to represent competing nations. German
Speaker 1: athletes won the most medals of anyone, and the organization
Speaker 1: of the event was praised highly. Yeah, they actually won
Speaker 1: the most medals by far, to almost double that of
Speaker 1: the U s which was number two. Um and it
Speaker 1: did work in the pr sense to The New York
Speaker 1: Times even said that the games put Germany quote back
Speaker 1: in the fold of nat Shans, and Hitler thought that
Speaker 1: things had gone so well and that everybody approved of
Speaker 1: the game so highly. He fully expected that after the
Speaker 1: nineteen forty Games, which were already slated to take place
Speaker 1: in Tokyo, the Olympics would take place in Berlin forever.
Speaker 1: There wouldn't be any other cities that hosted the Olympics.
Speaker 1: Um just Berlin year after year after year. Reminded me
Speaker 1: a little bit of our early discussion of the modern
Speaker 1: Olympics and in Paris and Athens and debates about where
Speaker 1: the Olympics should happen. But that's the bold opinion and
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence there. Some people, though, saw how
Speaker 1: hoodwinked the world had been during this time, and how
Speaker 1: a major opportunity to censure the Nazi regime before the
Speaker 1: war was basically lost. Others feared the end of the charade.
Speaker 1: US Ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd wrote that Jews
Speaker 1: were expecting the end of the games with fear and trembling.
Speaker 1: Just two days after the games ended, the head of
Speaker 1: the Olympic village, who was a Jewish descent, was dismissed
Speaker 1: from military service and killed himself. Yeah, so so people
Speaker 1: were afraid what the back to business kind of regime
Speaker 1: would be like. Now that the world had gone home,
Speaker 1: what was regular life going to be like. One example
Speaker 1: of this kind of return to normal being intolerable for
Speaker 1: people's grettel Bergmann, the high jumper who we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: who was used as an example of how Germans were
Speaker 1: including Jews on their teams and then was ultimately booted
Speaker 1: off the team at the last minute. She immigrated to
Speaker 1: the United States just a year after the Games. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: only two Jewish athletes competed for Germany. One was Rudy Ball.
Speaker 1: He competed in ice hockey in the Winter Games, back
Speaker 1: when the country would host both the Winter and the
Speaker 1: Summer Games. The other was Helene Meyer, who was a
Speaker 1: half Jewish blonde. You know, she was considered to look
Speaker 1: very arian. Uh. She competed in fencing. She actually he
Speaker 1: had already fled Germany before the Games, but came back
Speaker 1: to compete. Saluted Hitler ultimately left again. I think you
Speaker 1: can look at a lot of these athletes stories and
Speaker 1: again the Holocaust Memorial Museum has a really sad page
Speaker 1: talking about a lot of Olympians from as early as
Speaker 1: the first Games and their fate during the Holocaust. Um
Speaker 1: But a bigger picture thing to think about too, is
Speaker 1: that this was the last Olympics for a very long time.
Speaker 1: The of course, the nineteen forty Tokyo Games didn't happen,
Speaker 1: the ninety four Games didn't happen. So it's not on
Speaker 1: the same scale, of course as people losing their lives.
Speaker 1: But one thing I can't help thinking about is that
Speaker 1: your professional athletic window is pretty narrow. Um. And if
Speaker 1: you weren't able to compete in this games, whether because
Speaker 1: you protested it, you boycotted it, or you weren't allowed to,
Speaker 1: very likely would have been your very last chance because
Speaker 1: you weren't going to get another one for twelve years.
Speaker 1: Bringing it back to athletics a little bit again, like
Speaker 1: he said, Um, we have a quote from Owens on
Speaker 1: preparing to run the one. He said, it's a nervous,
Speaker 1: terrible feeling you feel as you stand there, as if
Speaker 1: your legs can't carry the weight of your body. Your
Speaker 1: stomach isn't there, and your mouth is dry, and your
Speaker 1: hands are wet with perspiration, and you begin to think
Speaker 1: in terms of all those years that you've worked, in
Speaker 1: my particular case, the one hundred meters as you look
Speaker 1: down the field one hundred nine yards two feet away
Speaker 1: and recognizing that after eight years of hard work, this
Speaker 1: is the point that I had reached and that all
Speaker 1: was going to be over in ten seconds. Those are
Speaker 1: the great moments in the lives of individuals. So I
Speaker 1: thought that was a good way to wrap this up,
Speaker 1: because it is an individual story as much as it
Speaker 1: is a story of forty nine countries coming from around
Speaker 1: the world to compete in Owen. Yeah, and you can't
Speaker 1: really separate those stories. You can't tell Owen's story without
Speaker 1: telling the story of these very unique games and what
Speaker 1: you had to go through. Yeah, So, which is why
Speaker 1: we did that. But if you have any other sports stories,
Speaker 1: any stories of famous Olympians that you'd like us to
Speaker 1: talk about, or that you'd like to share with us,
Speaker 1: maybe something about Owen's life that we didn't include today
Speaker 1: that you want to point out, feel free to write us.
Speaker 1: We're at it try podcast at Discovery dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also look us up on Facebook and we're on
Speaker 1: Twitter at ust Industry, and we have loads of Olympic
Speaker 1: content still coming out. I think in one article that
Speaker 1: you could check out if you want to learn about
Speaker 1: a few more of these individual stories is five amazing
Speaker 1: Olympic athletes. You can search for that on our homepage
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