A friendship in the face of fascism

It was an instinctive sporting gesture that has gone down in Olympic folklore, but, for German long-jump champion Luz Long, it would have dark consequences.

As Jesse Owens soared over the eight-metre mark to secure gold at the 1936 Games, Long - his biggest rival - leapt into the sandpit in Berlin to hug and congratulate him. Later, in a striking contradiction to Nazi Germany's twisted notion of Aryan supremacy and decades before the civil rights movement would spark radical change in the United States, the pair shared a lap of honour together, black and white athlete jogging arm in arm.

Not everyone was applauding. High in the stands, German leader Adolf Hitler watched on disapprovingly. As they stood on the podium - Long giving the required Nazi salute and Owens saluting the Stars and Stripes flag of a nation not yet ready to accept him wholly as one of their own - both athletes were unaware of what lay in store.

Owens and Long, both born in 1913, were at the peak of their athletic powers when they locked horns in Berlin. But that is where the similarities ended; their beginnings and journeys to the Games were polar opposites. A 20th-century icon, Owens' story has been widely told. He was the grandson of former slaves and the youngest of 10 children in a family of Alabama tenant farmers.