Hitler's Olympics (31 page)

Owens could relax, his Games over, safe in the knowledge they would always be his.

The women’s fencing final began at 5 p.m., the Cupola Hall filled by 2,000 spectators. The eight finalists fought each other but the three great fencers, Elek-Schacherer, Mayer the
Mischling
and Preis the Viennese Jew faced many pressures on many different levels. Reflecting that, an announcement warned the crowd to remain silent.

Elek-Schacherer beat Mayer by 5 hits to 4 and Preis by 5 hits to 3.

Elek-Schacherer, strong and sure, looked certain to take the gold because she won six of her seven bouts and then seemed to have thrown it away – or as
Der Angriff
put it, ‘left everything hanging by a silken thread’ – when she lost by 5 hits to 3 to the second German girl, Hedwig Hass from Offenbach. Elek-Schacherer finished on 12 points.

Preis beat Mayer 5 hits to 4 so, with these two defeats, Mayer could only total 10 points.

It turned on the Hass–Preis bout which Haas won by 5 hits to 4. That left Mayer, Preis and Haas on 10 points but the tie breaker resolved it: Mayer (19 hits received) had the silver, Preis (20) the bronze and Haas (23) nothing at all.
Der Angriff
carried a headline ‘HELENE MAYER ANOTHER SILVER MEDAL’. ‘These final stages will certainly be recorded in the history of the sport because, on one side, superb fencing was provided by all eight participants and, on the other, the result from first to last hit, was absolutely uncertain. According to the pre-Games form, it was pretty sure that the German Helene Mayer would get the gold medal because her fencing was so consistent and yet wonderful, and it seemed impossible to fence any better than that. Then, in this final round, everything went differently.’

In the football Poland beat Hungary 3–0 and Austria beat Egypt 3–1.

The pole vaulters vaulted into the darkness but fully half the crowd in the stadium stayed, despite the cold, and prepared to make a lot of noise.
¹⁸
Americans Earle Meadows, William Sefton and William Graber took on two Japanese, Shuhei Nishida and Sueo Oe. Officials loomed in the arc lamps as if they themselves were phosphorescent. An American cheerleader with a mini-megaphone orchestrated
their
noise. The Japanese in the crowd chanted. And it was cold: once a competitor had vaulted he buried himself in blankets as he waited to vault again.

Meadows, Nishida and Oe cleared the bar at 4.15 metres first time, Graber needing two vaults and Sefton three. At 4.25 Nishida and Sefton cleared it first time, Meadows and Sefton needing two. Graber faced his third jump and sudden death. A team-mate had a word as he concentrated at the end of the runway, limbs no doubt tired. He nodded thanks, came from the darkness and smashed the bar from the underside. He was out.

On the first vault at 4.35, a record height for an Olympics, the remaining four all failed. On the second Meadows sailed high, jack-knifed cleanly over and snapped his fingers –
yes!
He did a little dance: he had transferred all the pressure onto the other three but, enduring an agony of suspense, would have to wait for them to complete their vaults to know whether he had gold or would have to go again, the bar up to 4.45.

All three failed on their second vault.

Sefton just disturbed the bar on his third. He was out.

Oe seemed to be over but his chest brushed against the bar, disturbing it, and it tumbled down. He was out. The Japanese cheerleader drew the chant ‘
Nish – I – da! Nish – i – da!
’ from the Japanese spectators, sitting in a phalanx. Nishida, an earnest face under a shock of dark hair, stood at the end of the runway rocking gently to and fro to create rhythm. He came down the runway past ghostly white officials and launched himself. He must have been utterly exhausted. As his body arched over the bar his knees seemed to strike it and, as it began to fall, his body fell onto it. He landed heavily, his body casting a prism of shadows.

Meadows had the gold medal.

Nor was this all. Even after some twelve hours of combat he signalled the bar to be ratcheted to the 4.45, a world record. He made three attempts and they failed.

It’s easy to be mesmerised by these public faces, even when they loom out of the dark, and any Games is that. But the private faces are there, too, if rarely even glimpsed. One of these August nights, perhaps this one, Williams found an American coach, Bob Kiesel, so homesick that he broke down and cried which reduced Williams to tears, too.
¹⁹

And that was the fourth day.

The weather on the Thursday remained unseasonably cold with cloud lingering into the early afternoon and wind until evening.

The American 4 × 100 relay team – Stoller, Glickman, Draper, Wykoff – were training daily but, the heats looming on the Saturday, tension began to set in. Glickman estimated all four of them were so evenly matched that if they were racing each other they’d have different winners each time – except for Draper, who wouldn’t win. Glickman would admit Owens and Metcalfe were faster but it did not disturb the conventions of selection.
²⁰
Owens, bedecked with three gold medals, and Metcalfe had had their events. They would be watching to see what the other four could do.

The two coaches, Lawson Robertson and Dean Cromwell, organised a 100-metre race for Glickman, Stoller and Draper at the training ground at the Olympic Village; Wykoff, considered ‘race sharp’, was omitted. Stoller made a strong start, Glickman couldn’t quite catch him, Draper came third and Glickman thought no more of it.

The day centred round the men’s 1,500 metres final and what Lovelock might do.

In the afternoon Towns, who had an energetic, balletic style, as if diving forward to clear each hurdle, did 14.1 seconds in his 110 metres semi-final, breaking the Olympic and world records. Häkan Lidman (Sweden), Finlay and fellow Briton Frederick Pollard would be the opposition in the final but none had bettered 14.5.

The javelin throwers were into their semi-finals and by the end of them eleven had been eliminated. Gerhard Stöck won the final with 71.84 metres.

At 4.15 p.m. twelve men came to the 1,500 metres. Lovelock, all in black, estimated Glenn Cunningham (America) and Luigi Beccali (Italy) posed the main threats; and still he guarded his secret.

Hitler made sure he was there for the start.

Jerry Cornes (Great Britain) led into the second lap, Beccali behind him, Lovelock lost in the pack but across 1,500 metres tactics unfold, moves and counter-moves are made; and still Lovelock guarded his secret. On the back straight Cunningham made a move, Lovelock covering it by flowing easily along in third place. Now Eric Ny, a 27-year-old from Stockholm, made his move, coming up the outside into lap 3. On the bend after the start–finish line Ny drew up to Cunningham’s shoulder; on the back straight Cunningham held the lead, Ny at him, then Lovelock and Beccali. On the far bend Ny – still outside – forged past so tightly that Cunningham, squeezed, put a foot off the track.

Into the straight towards the fourth and final lap Ny moved fractionally ahead and Lovelock ducked out, ready to reveal the secret. On the first bend he accelerated at fierce pace: in twelve strides he went past Ny and in another twelve was completely clear. Ny melted, Cunningham seeing the danger –
Lovelock thinks he can sprint a whole lap
– lengthened his stride. They moved equidistant and into the final bend Cunningham held the gap at some 3 metres, but Lovelock sprinted on. Arms and legs working like a machine, he even had time to glance back. He didn’t need to.

Harold Abrahams,
²¹
commentating on the BBC, bayed ‘My God, he’s done it! Jack! Come on! Lovelock wins! Five yards, six yards. He wins! He’s won! Hooray!’
²²
At 3 minutes 47.8 seconds he’d broken the Olympic and world records. Cunningham (silver), Beccali (bronze)
and
the next two to finish also broke the Olympic record.

Afterwards Lovelock, curly haired and beaming, explained that Cunningham and Beccali had been ‘fooled’ because they thought he could only sprint for the final 70 metres or so and were ‘not prepared when I started my run. I think I could have sustained it for another hundred metres if necessary.’
That
was the secret.

Lovelock had a good friend, a surgeon, who said ‘Jack was a great worrier. He ran on nervous energy. Physically he was very fit, but mentally he was very fragile, jumpy even … after the race in Berlin, Jack was absolutely delighted. I’d never seen him like that before and never again. He was human. He was overjoyed, and grateful.’
²³
Cunningham sportingly accepted that, having given his all, he just wasn’t good enough. Lovelock, he felt, must be the greatest runner – as distinct from sprinter, of course – ever. Cunningham drew pride from the fact that Lovelock had had to set this new world record to beat him.

When he had his breath fully back Lovelock said, ‘This running is wrecking both my health and my work. It isn’t the fun it used to be. I think it’s about time to hang up my running shoes.’
²⁴

Something about the triple jump (then known as the hop, step and jump) attracted the Japanese because Naoto Tajima won it with 16.00 metres, which beat the Olympic and world records, and Masao Harada took the silver.

The electric recording device for settling close finishes proved invaluable in the women’s 80 metres hurdles final where the first four – Valla, Steuer, Elizabeth Taylor (Canada) and Testoni – all did 11.7 seconds, equalling the Olympic record. They waited for the film to be developed and when it was, Valla had it from Taylor and Steuer.

Towns duly delivered the 100 metres hurdles final.

In the football Peru beat Finland 7–3 and Great Britain beat China 2–0.

And that was the fifth day.

Belated sunshine brought a rise in the temperature on the Friday but heavy cloud gathered by noon. After brief rain the wind dropped, leaving a fine day.

At the stadium, coach Robertson made a point of telling Stoller that he had run ‘a very fine race’ the day before at the Village track and confirmed him for the 4 × 100 relay team. Robertson added that, had Stoller finished third ‘as Draper did’, he would not have been in. It meant Draper was out and he, Robertson, would have to break the news to him. Something serious was going to happen.
²⁵

Robertson told Alan Gould, covering the Games for the news agency Associated Press and therefore a conduit to the whole American media, that Owens would be in. Robertson must have already informed Owens of this because Owens gave Stoller the team: Owens, Metcalfe, Stoller, Wykoff. Evidently Draper got word of this because he went to Cromwell and, via him, to Robertson.

Glickman heard rumours but discounted them.

A crowd of 30,000 came to watch the decathlon, that ultimate all-round examination of an athlete. On this day they’d do the 100 metres, long jump, shot-put, high jump and 400 metres (with each event carrying points). Soon enough three Americans emerged: Robert Clark, Glenn Morris and Jack Parker.

The stadium filled for the afternoon heats.

English-speakers dominated the 400 metres heats. Williams, who had cunningly spent a long time before the Olympics telling Owens how tough the 400 metres was and how it would ‘kill him’ in order to discourage him from thinking of running in it, won the first heat despite the weight he had gained on board the
Manhattan
, from Bill Roberts (Great Britain).
²⁶
The son of a furniture shop owner in Salford, near Manchester, Roberts left school at thirteen, led a dance band, managed a timber yard and would become the only working-class member of the British 4 × 400 relay team.

John Loaring (Canada) came third.

LuValle won the second from Arthur Brown (Great Britain), a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University, and William Fritz (Canada).

The 5,000 metres might have been explosive. Lauri Lehtinen had blatantly blocked Ralph Hill, an American, at the Los Angeles Games, zig-zagging from lane to lane – one report suggests he even tripped him – and here was Lehtinen again along with two other Finns, Gunnar Höckert and Ilmari Salminen. Early on, these three ran together at the front with Kohei Murakaso (Japan) and Don Lash (America) staying with them. The lead changed several times and Lash was over-extending himself: he’d fall back, sprint up again, fall back again and at 3,000 metres faded altogether. With two laps to go Höckert led from Murakaso and Salminen but as the pace hotted up Salminen tripped and fell. Höckert led from Lehtinen at the bell and unleashed a ferocious assault, drawing further and further ahead. Höckert broke the Olympic record, and so did the next two.

Louis Zamperini, who had eaten his way out of the Depression on the
Manhattan
, came in eighth but endeared himself to the crowd by sprinting the whole of the final lap, which he did in 56 seconds: fast. Lovelock would have appreciated that. Hitler did appreciate it, sent word he would like to meet him and when Zamperini arrived Hitler said through an interpreter ‘Aha! The boy with the fast finish!’
²⁷

Williams approached the 400 metres final with a specific concern. When the runners came off the final bend their white-painted lanes crossed into the straight lanes for the 100-metre events, almost like railway points. At the crossing point the runner, tired, could find them confusing and unwittingly step out of his lane to disqualification.
²⁸
Williams needn’t have worried. He commanded the race from Lane 5 and when the stagger unwound Brown, outside, struggled to stay with him. Williams drew away, LuValle closing, Brown responding. Brown closed, Williams slowed – feet heavy – and in the lunge at the line Brown was half a stride behind. They had run themselves almost literally to a standstill.