1936 United States Olympic Trials (track and field)

Jesse Owens won both the 100 and 200 meters. In the 100 meters the favorites were Owens, Ralph Metcalfe and Eulace Peacock; Peacock had won the AAU championship in 1935 but missed much of 1936 due to injuries, and reinjured himself at the Trials. Future star Ben Johnson was also injured and failed to finish in his heat.[1]^:79 In Peacock's absence, Owens won by two yards with Metcalfe the runner-up; Frank Wykoff, who had only qualified for the final after a repechage, took third and qualified for his third consecutive Olympics.[5]

For a long time, most American 200-meter and 220-yard races were run on straights; this had also been the case at previous Olympic Trials.[1]^:80 At the 1936 Trials a turn was used; Owens's winning time, 21.0, equaled the world best for 200 meters with a turn.[6]^:42 Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson, lost by only one yard.[1]^:80 Robert Rodenkirchen, who had won in 21.0 (around a turn) at the Eastern Tryouts, was ruled ineligible for the final Trials due to being a German citizen.[6]^:42[7]

Archie Williams, who won the 400 meters at both the Trials and the Olympics, was a relative newcomer; he had made his breakthrough earlier in 1936, running a new world record (46.1) at the NCAA championships.[1]^:80[6]^:50 Smallwood and LuValle, who had both defeated Williams at the AAU championships a week before the Trials, took the other Olympic spots.[1]^:80 In the 800 meters, the fastest times were seen in the heats; John Woodruff won the first heat in 1:49.9, missing the metric world record by only one-tenth of a second.[1]^:81[5][note 1] The final was slower, with Woodruff winning in 1:51.0; returning Olympian Hornbostel was second, and Williamson narrowly overtook Abraham Rosenkrantz for third. Leading favorites Charles Beetham and Ben Eastman were both eliminated; Eastman, the world record holder and pre-Trials world leader, was ill before the race and placed sixth.[8]^:21 Beetham, who had defeated Woodruff at the AAU championships, fell and lost his chances when Marmaduke Hobbs tripped in front of him; his appeal for a solo time-trial re-run was rejected by meeting officials.[1]^:81[8]

Mile world record holder Glenn Cunningham won the 1500 meters in a close battle, edging NCAA champion San Romani by inches; Gene Venzke, who had missed out as the leading favorite at the 1932 Trials, was a clear third. Bill Bonthron, holder of the world record (3:48.8), placed fourth and was eliminated.[9] The 1500 meters was run as a straight final, as was the 3000-meter steeplechase; heats had been scheduled for both events but skipped at the request of the runners.[5]

Don Lash and Louis Zamperini dead-heated in the 5000 meters; originally, Lash was ruled to be the sole winner, but after photo-finish review the result was changed to a tie.[10] Lash (who had already qualified in the 10,000 meters) was the early leader, but slowed down to support his Indiana teammate Tom Deckard. When Deckard's place in the top three was clear, Lash resumed running his own race, battling with Zamperini for victory.[1]^:81[8] In the 3000-meter steeplechase Harold Manning broke Volmari Iso-Hollo's world best of 9:09.4; second-time Olympians Joe McCluskey and Glen Dawson took the next spots.[6]^:110 The warm weather, with temperatures of up to 100 °F (38 °C), was not conducive to fast distance running; Manning noted he had worked in even hotter conditions and could handle the heat.[1]^:79,81[9] As the steeplechase did not become an official world record event until 1954, Manning's time was only ratified as a national record.[1]^:81[6]^:110

The 110 meter hurdles finalists had to wait for several minutes in the starting holes (blocks were not used) as the meeting had been running ahead of schedule. Consequently, they lost their best concentration.[9]^:7 Forrest "Spec" Towns, the dominant hurdler of 1936, got a slow start but pulled away over the last hurdles; he went on to win gold at the Olympics. Sam Allen, who had been expected to qualify, ran with a broken toe and was eliminated.[1]^:82[11] World record holder Glenn "Slats" Hardin was a heavy favorite in the 400 meter hurdles; he led the final from start to finish, but eventually only narrowly defeated Patterson and Schofield.[1]^:82–83[11]

Eight men were named to the Olympic 4 × 100 meter relay pool: the top three from both 100 and 200 meters, as well as Foy Draper, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, who placed fourth to sixth in the 100 meters.[10] It was expected that the four who would actually run at the Olympics would be Wykoff, Draper, Glickman and Stoller, and they trained for the relay together. Shortly before the Olympic heats, however, Glickman and Stoller were replaced with Owens and Metcalfe.[12] Although the switch meant the top four from the Trials ran on the Olympic relay, the late exclusion of Glickman and Stoller was controversial, especially given they had both been faster than Draper in practice runs after the Trials.[12] Accusations of anti-Semitism (Glickman and Stoller were both Jewish) and favoritism (Draper and Wykoff, who remained on the team, were both from the same university as assistant national team coach Dean Cromwell) resulted.[12] Owens, Metcalfe, Draper and Wykoff won the Olympic relay in a new world record time (39.8) that was only broken twenty years later.[6]^:134

The 4 × 400 meter relay pool also consisted of eight men; the top seven from the individual 400 meters (Williams, Smallwood, LuValle, Al Fitch, Bob Young, Harold Cagle and Eddie O'Brien), as well as 800-meter champion John Woodruff.[13] In this case, the four runners selected purely for the relay (Fitch, Young, Cagle and O'Brien) were used at the Olympics; they won silver behind the British team.[1]^:80

Corny Johnson and Dave Albritton provided one of the Trials' top highlights in the high jump, tying for first place at the world record height of 6 ft ​9 ³⁄₄ in (2.07 m). Both jumpers cleared the record height on their second attempts; Johnson broke the record first, with Albritton following shortly after.[4] Behind the top two the level was surprisingly weak, with only Thurber clearing 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m). Walter Marty, who held the previous world record of 6 ft ​9 ¹⁄₈ in (2.06 m), was eliminated, as was indoor world record holder Ed Burke.[1]^:83[4] At the Olympics the three Americans swept the medals; Johnson, who had placed fourth at the 1932 Games, won from Albritton and Thurber.

The world record holder was also left out of the team in the pole vault; George Varoff, who had won the AAU title with a record jump of 14 ft ​6 ¹⁄₂ in (4.43 m), only cleared 14 ft (4.26 m) at the Trials and placed fourth. For the first time in the history of the Olympic Trials, all qualifiers in an event came from the same university; Earle Meadows (who won in Berlin) and Bill Sefton were students at the University of Southern California, while returning Olympian Bill Graber was a USC graduate.[1]^:83

Owens won easily in the long jump, only taking two attempts; he was the only athlete to qualify in three events. Bob Clark, who also qualified in the decathlon, considered giving his place on the long jump squad to fourth-placer Kermit King; team officials, however, disallowed that.[1]^:83[9] In the triple jump all of the top three came from Louisiana; AAU champion Brown, a 17-year-old high schooler, was the youngest athlete to qualify for the men's team.[1]^:83–84[14]

World record holder Jack Torrance had been the world's leading shot putter since 1933 and was considered an almost certain Olympic champion at his peak.[15]^:487–489 By 1936 he had lost his best shape; he was overweight and no longer trained as hard as during his peak years. While still a top contender, he only placed fifth in Berlin, with Francis in fourth being the best American.[1]^:84 Gordon "Slinger" Dunn – who only missed qualifying in the shot by two inches – won the discus throw ahead of AAU champion Ken Carpenter, though neither of them was at their best. Defending Olympic champion John Anderson had made a strong comeback in 1936, but was ill before the final Trials and went out in the qualifying.[1]^:84[16][17] Carpenter and Dunn were also the top two at the Olympics.

Henry Dreyer, the 1935 AAU champion, narrowly defeated 1936 AAU champion Bill Rowe in the hammer throw; both Dreyer and Rowe had been coached by former Olympic champion Fred Tootell at Rhode Island State College.[1]^:84[18] Javelin champion Lee Bartlett qualified for his third consecutive Olympic Games, while runner-up Metcalf made the team for the second time; Terry, who had won the NCAA championship with an American record throw of 226 ft ​2 ³⁄₄ in (68.95 m), was the only new Olympian on the team.[1]^:84[4]

In the 10,000 meters, Olympic selections were based on the AAU championship race in Princeton. Don Lash, who also won the 5000 meters, broke the American record; he was one of only three men to qualify in more than one individual event, the others being Owens and Bob Clark.[1]^:82[4]

Decathlon qualifying was held in Milwaukee as part of the Central Tryouts.[1]^:4 Glenn Morris, a newcomer who had completed his first decathlon only two months before the Trials, won with a world record tally of 7875 points; he was good in all events and had no weak points.[19][20] Bob Clark broke the long jump decathlon best with a jump of 25 ft ​11 ¹⁄₂ in (7.91 m), but was not as strong as Morris in the hurdles and throws.[1]^:85[20] Morris's world record was superseded by his Olympic winning score of 7900 points and never ratified; the Americans swept the medals at the Olympics.[1]^:85[6]^:214

Marathon selections were based on two races, the Boston Marathon and the AAU championship marathon in Washington. Ellison "Tarzan" Brown, a Narragansett Indian, won the Boston Marathon; he went out extremely fast and won by almost two minutes despite slowing to a walk at several points late in the race.[21]^:62–72 McMahon, the Boston runner-up, won the AAU championship in a course record time; Kelley, fifth in Boston and second in the AAU race, received the third Olympic spot.[1]^:82[22] Early favorites to qualify had included Boston course record holder Les Pawson and defending AAU champion Pat Dengis;[23] both of them dropped out in Boston, and Dengis faded from the lead to eighth in Washington, suffering from medical problems.[21]^:65,79[22]

In the 50-kilometer race walk, the AAU championship race in Cincinnati doubled as the Olympic qualifying event. Returning Olympian Ernie Crosbie started slow and only took the lead near the finish; newcomer Mangan was second, and Koehler defeated John Deni by one second for the final place on the team. The times were relatively slow due to the warm weather.[24]