FILE: ATHLETICS - Jesse Owens' Olympic gold medal from the 1936 games fetches a record price at auction

Record ID: 863404

  • Title: FILE: ATHLETICS - Jesse Owens' Olympic gold medal from the 1936 games fetches a record price at auction
  • Date: 8th December 2013
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE 1936) (REUTERS) JESSE OWNES AT AN ATHLETICS MEETING AT THE WHITE CITY STADIUM OWENS SPEAKING TO CAMERA NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE NOVEMBER 2013) (REUTERS) (MUTE) AUCTIONEER HOLDING THE 1936 OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL WON BY OWENS COLUMBUS, OHIO (FILE 1936) (REUTERS) OWENS BREAKING THE WORLD 220 YARDS RECORD AT AN INTERSTATE CHAMPIONSHIP NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE NOVEMBER 2013) (REUTERS) (MUTE) VARIOUS OF THE MEDAL
  • Embargoed: 23rd December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa, United Kingdom
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: General,People,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVACRJP5N5N3244OAZX2HPB75UST
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  • Story Text: A gold medal won by black American athlete Jesse Owens at the notorious Berlin Olympics in 1936 has reportedly been sold at auction for almost 1.5 million US dollars, a record for Olympic memorabilia.
    The only known survivor from the four gold medals Owens won at the games, it was sold by New York online auctioneers SCP on Saturday (December 7) USA Today reported.
    Owens arrived in Berlin a heavy favorite at the Olympics even though Adolf Hitler boasted the German team would demonstrate Aryan superiority. Owens, the son of a share-cropper and grandson of slave, shattered the Nazi myth with an unparalleled performance winning gold in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, long jump and the 4x100-meter relay to the dismay of the onlooking Hitler.
    The medal is not marked and it is unknown which one of the four it is.
    Despite the breakthrough performance at the Olympics, Owens returned to a segregated America and he soon found himself in financial trouble and declared bankruptcy in 1939.
    His friend the screen entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson helped him out and Owens gave him the medal in thanks.
    The medal remained with Robinson's third wife, Elaine Plaines-Robinson, after his death in 1949 and is being sold by the Robinson's estate.
    No verifiable record of the other three original medals is known, though Owens was later issued a replacement set of all four medals that now resides at Ohio State University as part of their Jesse Owens collection.
    The record for Olympic memorabilia was set last April when a bidder paid $865,000 for a silver cup won by the winner of the first modern-day Olympic marathon in 1896.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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