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PHOENIX — John Woodruff, who joined Jesse Owens as black Americans who won gold medals in the face of Adolf Hitler and his "master race" agenda at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, has died at an assisted living center near Phoenix. Woodruff died Tuesday at a center in Fountain Hills, said Rose Woodruff, his wife of 37 years. He was 92.
"I was at his bedside at the time he passed," she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. "We were holding hands, and he slept away peacefully."
Woodruff, nicknamed "Long John" for his lengthy stride, was a lanky 21-year-old freshman at Pittsburgh when he sailed to the Olympics and into a racially-charged scene.
On Aug. 4, 1936, he won the 800 meters using one of the most astonishing tactics in Olympic history. Boxed in by the pack of slow-paced runners, he literally stopped in his tracks, then moved to the third lane and passed everyone.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2007-11-01-38804549_x.htm
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