Memory of Owens honored by Phillips' jump

BERLIN -- In the stadium where thousands once roared for Hitler, where Jesse Owens won the long jump at the 1936 Summer Games and changed history, Dwight Phillips of the United States seized the opportunity Saturday to add a sweet chapter to the stuff of legend.

Phillips, as Owens before him, won the long jump here at the 2009 World Championships at Olympic Stadium. On his singlet, as it was for the entire American team at these championships, were the initials "JO," for Jesse Owens.

Here, past is always present. Phillips received his gold medal later Saturday from Marlene Dortch, Jesse Owens' granddaughter. The box in the stands in which she had been sitting just moments before had been Hitler's box.

"That's just history looking at me in the face," Phillips said. "I was so honored."

Here, past is present, and the long jump competition itself, and the ceremony afterward, carried the feel of a celebration -- of Jesse Owens and of Luz Long, and of the spirit of friendship that in the telling has endured as one of the lessons of the 1936 Games.

"He's a great icon," the silver medalist Saturday, Godfrey Mokoena of South Africa, said of Ownes. "A lot of people look up to him. There's a lot of history.

"... It's great," he said. "It's great to be in that atmosphere."

According to legend, Owens fouled on his first two jumps. Long suggested before the third that Owens back up a bit. Owens did so, qualified, and then went on to win gold.

In all, Owens won four gold medals in 1936.

Long, the blonde German who helped Owens, the black American, died in 1943 amid combat in World War II.

The 1936 Games are notorious now for the outrageous propaganda exercise Hitler sought to propagate.

In some measure, that's why the legend of Jesse Owens' singular triumph in Berlin resonates still.

It's also, of course, because Long's suggestion to Owens -- made more poignant by the obvious differences between the two men, and then by the war, and by Long's death -- makes concrete the spirit of friendship that is the core of the Olympic ideal.

The thing is, Long's son, Kai, said Saturday -- no one could have predicted at the time that all of the elements of the story that we now know would have been animating his father then.

It's more likely, Kai Long said, that his father was more likely to help Jesse Owens because that's what, in the fashion of the time, "amateur" athletes did for one another, no matter their what they looked like or came from.

"This little thing was a little fire that was lighted," a "very nice gesture of two amateurs," Kai Long said, adding, "In the context of the further history which nobody knew at this time, this fire became brighter and brighter and it's still burning today."

Marlene Dortch said, "It's like when Rosa Parks sat down on that bus, her intent was not to start a movement. She was tired and felt she should be able to sit down on that bus.

"These two men ... do we know exactly what they were thinking? No, because none of us were there. But the result ... you can't deny it was an inspiration to people."

Phillips, the 2004 Athens Games gold medalist, the 2005 and 2007 Worlds champion, quietly paid a visit here a few days ago to a museum that commemorates the story of Jesse Owens and Luz Long.

"I was honored I was able to come out here today and represent the USA and represent the 'JO' symbol we're wearing on our uniform," he said late Saturday, after the jumping.

Phillps won gold on his second jump, 8.54 meters/28 feet 3/4 inch. Mokoena's silver also came on his second jump, 8.47m/27-9 1/2.

Australia's Mitchell Watt earned bronze with his fifth jump, 8.37m/27 5 1/2.

For comparison, and to underscore just how the event has changed in 73 years, Jesse Owens won gold in 1936 with a jump of 8.06m/26 5 1/2.

Phillips made a little bit of history himself Saturday as well. His victory tied him with Cuba's Ivan Pedroso (1997, 1999, 2001) for the most World wins ever at this event.

Not a bad comeback for a guy who was so overweight that he didn't even qualify for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team. He was a sloppy 198 pounds last year, he admitted Saturday, but even so all his prior success had given him the mistaken belief he was "like Superman," and no way "three people from the United States could beat me."

They did, and he had to re-dedicate himself. He got himself down to 172. He changed coaches, to Loren Seagrave. Earlier this year, he went 8.74m/28 8 1/4, the longest jump in the world since Mike Powell's world-record 8.95m/29 4 1/2 in 1991, signaling that he was back on the scene in a big way.

Dwight Phillips should have won the long jump here Saturday, and he did. But that didn't make the celebration any less special.

Kai Long, as the son of the 1936 silver medalist, presented Mokoena Saturday night with his 2009 silver medal.

Marlene Dortch presented Australia's Watt the bronze, and Dwight Phillips his gold.

And she said, "I feel great that I am sitting in the box where Hitler once was, and being very comfortable, and enjoying watching the athletes, enjoying spending time with the wonderful Long family and my husband, knowing the Luz Long and Jesse Owens' family are being celebrated."