article by Nicholas Pucci
There are stories of sport and life that truly deserve to be told. Because they take on multiple values, if their most underground aspects are known. Take Ralph Metcalfe, American sprinter who knew how to illustrate himself in the Thirtiestoday’s protagonist on our pages, which really he was one step away from guaranteeing himself imperishable glory, but he saw it denied because… because he was a child of his times.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 29, 1910, Metcalfe captures three consecutive AAU 100m titles in 1932, ’33 and ’34 (in the latter case surpassing, in 10 “4, Jesse Owens) and even five (from 1932 to ’36) over the 200 metersalso winning both tests at the Oympic Trials of Stanford in 1932, preceding Eddie Tolan in both cases.
But on the trail of the Coliseum say los angeles on the occasion of the 1932 Olympic 100m final, Metcalfe suffers an atrocious regulation hoaxsince at the time the victory was assigned to whoever, first, “exceeded” the finish line, rule changed the following year favoring those who first had “reached up“the wool thread, a circumstance that penalizes Metcalfe, physically larger than the small Tolan, who is therefore awarded the Olympic gold despite the two being timed with the same time of 10″3which equals the world record.
Conversely, there are no doubts about Tolan’s superiority over double distancewhich the sprinter from Colorado makes his own in 21″1 with a wide margin over his compatriot George Simpson (21″4) and Metcalfe (21″5), who must therefore postpone his dreams of Olympic glory to the 1936 Berlin editiongiven that the US Federation allows the 4×100 relay to be played by those excluded from individual competitions ai Trialswho still win.
As is well known by now, four years later to shine is the star of Jesse Owensed ai Trials Metcalfe gets the selection only on 100 metersbeing mocked by Robert Packard on the 200, where he finished fourth.
In the final of Olympic stadium of Berlin, Metcalfe can do nothing compared to the excessive power of Owens, who wins the first of his four gold medals with a time of 10″3, having to settle for the second silver with a time of 10″4and his career would have ended without the joy of an Olympic gold, if to please the Nazi leaders, lhe US Federation had not decided to include Owens and Metcalfe in the 4×100 relay in place of the two chosen ones, but of Jewish religion (therefore, for Goebbels & Co., better of black skin than Jews…).
This allows Owens to set the record, later equaled by Carl Lewis in Los Angeles 1984, of four gold medals in a single edition of the Games, and to Metcalfe to be able to combine the two silvers and the bronze won so far with a laurel of the most precious metalwith the easy success achieved, also with the world record of 39 “8.
And if in 1975 it will also be introduced, deservedly, in the National Track and Field Hall of Famewell… however that gold only grazed in Los Angeles over forty years earlier burned the sprinter from Georgia quite a bit.