The first portion of the tale is Jesse Owens as an athlete. The tale of Jesse Owens at OSU is largely a tale of two people. Once at OSU, Owens became known as the “Buckeye Bullet” and worked with Coach Larry Snyder. By the time Owens graduated from high school, he had made a name for himself as a sprinter and long jumper and earned a spot at the Ohio State University (OSU). Charles Riley, the physical education teacher and coach who witnessed Owens’ run, first thought the stopwatch was broken! The watch was not broken, and Riley quickly decided he needed to nurture Owens’ sprinting talent. Upward mobility for African Americans in the first half of the 20th century was not easy, but Owens’ opportunity came when he ran a near world-class time in the 100-yard run during gym class without any track gear.

The story of Owens starts with his upbringing and both his parents’ wish for him to have a better life than they did. Schaap manages to cover all of Owens' important life moments while also really going into detail about the racial tensions in the United States and the broader political and military tensions brewing globally in the 1930s. Jeremy Schaap, who also wrote Cinderella Man, was up to the task when he wrote Triumph. Several books and movies have told the story of Jesse Owens, so tackling this larger than life personality is no easy task. Reviewed by Tom O'Grady Long Jump 1936 Winners: Naoto Tajima, Japan Jesse Owens, US Luz Long, Germany “Add even more luster to the indelibly heroic achievements of Jesse Owens.Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics “A remarkable job of tackling a complex subject and bringing it to life.” -John Feinstein With incisive reporting and rich storytelling, Schaap reveals what really happened over those tense, exhilarating weeks in a “snappy and dramatic” work of sports history ( Publishers Weekly). Drawing on unprecedented access to the Owens family, previously unpublished interviews, and archival research, Jeremy Schaap transports us to Germany and tells the dramatic tale of Owens and his fellow athletes at the contest dubbed the Nazi Olympics. It is also the intimate and complex tale of one remarkable man’s courage.

The story of Jesse Owens at the Berlin games is that of an athletic performance that transcends sports. This New York Times–bestselling author’s account of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin offers a “vivid portrait not just of Owens but of ’30s Germany and America” ( Sports Illustrated).Īt the 1936 Olympics, against a backdrop of swastikas and goose-stepping storm troopers, an African American son of sharecroppers won a staggering four gold medals, single-handedly falsifying Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.

Triumph the untold story of jesse owens