First Jesse Owens Award goes posthumously to Muhammad Ali

The first Jesse Owens Olympic Spirit Award will recognize the late Muhammad Ali. The Owens Award was started this year, the 80th anniversary of Owens’ four-gold-medal performance at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and is to be presented annually to recognize people who have served as an inspiration in society. Owens’ granddaughter, Marlene Dortch, will present the award at next week’s

Best of the Games awards ceremony to Ali’s widow, Lonnie. Ali won the gold medal at the Rome 1960 Olympics, then took three world heavyweight championships in 1964, 1974 and 1978. James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete .He was the most successful athlete at the games and as such has been credited with “single-handedly crush[ing] Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy. His achievement of setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been called “the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport”and has never been equalled. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, Owens won international fame with four gold medals: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump