[Aktungbby]

1936: Jessie Owens wins the 100 meter sprint at the Berlin Olympics-taking the first of four gold medals...and putting a severe kink in the psyche of the 'master race'. ACTUALLY: Just before the competitions, Owens was visited in the Olympic village by Adi Dassler, the founder of the Adidas athletic shoe company. He convinced Owens to use his Gebruder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes...the first sponsorship for a male African-American athlete.On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens said at the time: "Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave. It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters. But before he left I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the 'man of the hour' in another country." In a 2009 interview, Siegfried Mischner, a German journalist, claimed that Owens carried around a photograph in his wallet of the Führer shaking his hand before the latter left the stadium. Owens, who felt the newspapers of the day reported 'unfairly' on Hitler's attitude towards him, tried to get Mischner and his journalist colleagues to change the accepted version of history in the 1960s. Mischner claimed Owens showed him the photograph and told him: "That was one of my most beautiful moments." Mischner added "(the picture) was taken behind the honour stand and so not captured by the world's press. But I saw it, I saw him shaking Hitler's hand!" According to Mischner, "the predominating opinion in post-war Germany was that Hitler had ignored Owens, so we therefore decided not to report on the photo. The consensus was that Hitler had to continue to be painted in a bad light in relation to Owens." For some time, Mischner's assertion was not confirmed independently of his own account, and Mischner himself admitted in Mail Online that "All my colleagues are dead, Owens is dead. I thought this was the last chance to set the record straight. I have no idea where the photo is or even if it exists still." However, in 2014, Eric 'Winkle' Brown, British fighter pilot and test pilot, Britain's most decorated living pilot, independently stated in a BBC documentary "I actually witnessed Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens and congratulating him on what he had achieved." Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels in Germany as whites; Owens later said: "Hitler didn't snub me – it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." A few months before his death, Owens had tried unsuccessfully to convince President Carter not to boycott the 1980 Olympics (to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan???!) He argued that the Olympic ideal was to be a time-out from war and above politics." [wiki] The athlete wouldn't be properly recognized until 1976, when President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Jesse Owens and the German athlete on the right, Luz Long, became friends during the Olympics. Luz Long gave tips to Jesse Owens that maybe saved the long-jump competition for him, and congratulated and embraced him after the win with the utmost sportsmanship They remained in correspondence until Long was killed in Sicily,1943, when the Allies invaded the island. Owens said: “It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be a plating on the twenty-four karat friendship that I felt for Luz Long at that moment”. Jesse Owens won those gold medals wearing shoes given to him by Adolf “Adi” Dassler, the founder of Adidas who was also a Nazi. German shoemaker Adolf “Adi” Dassler didn’t view the Berlin Games as a vehicle for Nazi propaganda but as a chance to launch his humble athletic shoe business. He successfully lobbied not only German athletes, but Owens as well, to wear his personally handcrafted leather track shoes with extra long spikes. Hells bells! even I wear Adidas!