Throughout the tortured history of sports and politics, one moment has always stood above the others: Jesse Owens's performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
A black man entered Hitler's Coliseum and destroyed the theory of Aryan physical supremacy by winning four gold medals in track and field.
The Fuhrer, according to legend, was so horrified by Owens's triumph, he stormed from the Olympic stadium rather than shaking his hand, as he had with every other medalist.
Baldur von Schirach, the leader of the Nazi Youth movement at the time, supposedly suggested to Hitler that he let himself be photographed with Owens. Hitler replied: 'The Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting their medals be won by negroes. I myself would never shake hands with one of them.'
However, 73 years later, the veracity of these accounts is being challenged. It is particularly timely, for on Saturday memories of Owens will be rekindled at the athletics World Championships in Berlin.
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