ACTS OF DEFIANCE

David Holmes revisits three iconic moments when athletes took a stand and changed history

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Few moments in Olympic history are as politically charged as the Berlin 1936 Olympics. Held under the shadow of Nazi ideology, the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler wanted the Games to showcase Aryan supremacy. As such, the city was awash with Nazi flags and military uniforms.

America's most popular sportswriter at the time, Grantland Rice, remarked that the place “looked more like two world wars than the Olympic Games”.

Into this ominous environment stepped African-American athlete Jesse Owens. “I was getting ready for a battle with a madman who would try to rule the entire world,” he later recalled. Owens went on to win four gold medals (100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100m relay) along with a world record and three Olympic records, tied or set. His dominance on the track upended Hitler's vision.