The 1936 United States Olympic trials for track and field were held in July 1936 and decided the United States team for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The trials for men and women were held separately; men's events were held at Randall's Island Stadium in New York City on July 11 and July 12, while women competed at Brown Stadium in Providence, Rhode Island on July 4. The top three athletes in each event qualified for the Olympic Games. The women's meeting also served as the annual outdoor track and field championships of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU); the men's AAU championships were held separately a week before the Olympic trials.
Official world records were set in the men's meet by Cornelius Johnson and Dave Albritton in the high jump; Glenn Morris's winning score in the decathlon was also a world record, but not ratified. Harold Manning, winner of the 3000 meter steeplechase, set an unofficial world best. Jesse Owens won three events, equaling the world best for 200 meters around a curve.
The 1936 Olympic trials were marked by the emergence of African-American athletes, including Owens, Johnson and Albritton; as many black athletes qualified for the men's team in 1936 as at all previous Olympic trials combined. On the women's side, Tidye Pickett qualified in the 80-meter hurdles, becoming the first African-American woman to compete in the Olympics.
Qualifying
As in previous years, athletes qualified for the men's Olympic trials by competing in preliminary meets; these included the 1936 NCAA championships and three regional semi-final tryout meets. At the final trials, the top three finishers in each event qualified for the Olympic team.
Some Olympic qualifying events were held separately from the trials proper; these included the decathlon, the 50 km race walk, the 10,000-meter run and the marathon. In the marathon the team was selected on the basis of two separate races.
Men
The men's Olympic trials were held at the newly built Randall's Island Stadium in New York City on July 11 and July 12, in the middle of the record-breaking 1936 North American heat wave. Official world records were set by Cornelius Johnson and Dave Albritton in the high jump. Jesse Owens won three events, equaling the world best for 200 meters around a curve; he went on to win four gold medals at the Olympics. Despite the warm conditions not being conducive to distance running, Harold Manning set an unofficial world best in the 3000-meter steeplechase.
Two athletesFrank Wykoff in the 100 meters and 4 × 100 meter relay, and Lee Bartlett in the javelin throwqualified for their third consecutive Olympic Games. African-American athletes fared better than ever before, winning all events from 100 to 800 meters as well as the long jump and high jump; ten black athletes qualified for the men's team, equaling the total for all previous Olympic trials combined.
Track 100 metersJesse Owens10.4Ralph Metcalfe10.6Frank Wykoff10.7e200 metersJesse Owens21.0 =Mack Robinson21.2eBob Packard21.3e400 metersArchie Williams46.6Harold Smallwood46.7eJames LuValle46.9e800 metersJohn Woodruff1:51.0Chuck Hornbostel1:51.3Harry Williamson1:51.41500 metersGlenn Cunningham3:49.9Archie San Romani3:49.9Gene Venzke3:52.25000 metersDon LashLouis Zamperini15:04.2Tom Deckard12 yds bh3000 meter steeplechaseHarold Manning9:08.2 Joe McCluskey9:16.8Glen Dawson9:23.2110 meter hurdlesForrest Towns14.3Fritz Pollard14.5eRoy Staley400 meter hurdlesGlenn Hardin51.4Joe Patterson51.6Dale Schofield51.7
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. 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.
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. At the 1936 trials a turn was used; Owens's winning time, 21.0, equaled the world best for 200 meters with a turn. Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson, lost by only one yard. 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.
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. Smallwood and LuValle, who had both defeated Williams at the AAU championships a week before the trials, took the other Olympic spots. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. 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. The warm weather, with temperatures of up to , was not conducive to fast distance running; Manning noted he had worked in even hotter conditions and could handle the heat. As the steeplechase did not become an official world record event until 1954, Manning's time was only ratified as a national record.
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. 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. 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.
Relay selections
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. The original 4 man team consisted of Draper, Glickman, Stoller, and Robinson. Robinson was replaced after he won a silver in the 200, giving the US an all-white team. 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. 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. 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. Owens, Metcalfe, Draper and Wykoff won the Olympic relay in a new world record time (39.8) that was only broken twenty years later.
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. 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.
Field
High jumpCornelius JohnsonDave Albritton6 ft in(2.07 m) Delos Thurber6 ft 6 in(1.98 m)Pole vaultBill GraberEarle MeadowsBill Sefton14 ft 3 in(4.34 m)Long jumpJesse Owens25 ft in(7.89 m)John Brooks25 ft in(7.70 m)Bob Clark25 ft in(7.69 m)Triple jumpRolland Romero49 ft 9 in(15.16 m)Dudley Wilkins49 ft in(14.97 m)Billy Brown49 ft 1 in(14.96 m)Shot putJack Torrance51 ft in(15.70 m)Sam Francis50 ft 4 in(15.34 m)Dimitri Zaitz50 ft in(15.31 m)Discus throwGordon Dunn157 ft in(48.05 m)Ken Carpenter156 ft in(47.60 m)Walter Wood156 ft 0 in(47.54 m)Hammer throwHenry Dreyer171 ft in(52.41 m)Bill Rowe171 ft in(52.36 m)Don Favor167 ft 6 in(51.05 m)Javelin throwLee Bartlett223 ft in(68.05 m)Malcolm Metcalf215 ft in(65.63 m)Alton Terry213 ft 11 in(65.20 m)
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 in (2.07 m). Both jumpers cleared the record height on their second attempts; Johnson broke the record first, with Albritton following shortly after. 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 in (2.06 m), was eliminated, as was indoor world record holder Ed Burke. 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 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.
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. 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.