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History not lost on track team heading into Jesse Owens Memorial Track Meet

Director of Track and Field Mark Guthrie speaks with members of the Central Michigan University track and field teams during the Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships at the Indoor Athletics Complex. (Photo Courtesy CMU Athletics)

One of the most iconic photographs in sports history is that of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics on the podium, flanked by America’s eventual World War II enemies Germany and Japan. In those Olympics, Owens rebuked the notion of the superiority of Adolf Hitler’s Aryan race.

Now — 80 years later — Central Michigan’s track and field team will travel to Ohio State University — where Owens attended and ran track and field.