Jesse Owens won the 200-meter dash at the 1936 Summer Games in Olympic-record time, the third of his four gold medals in Berlin. Owens’s dominance will be remembered forever, but the silver and bronze medalists in that race, Matthew Robinson and Martinus Osendarp, also had fascinating life stories.

Robinson, who was known as Mack, also broke the old Olympic mark, with a time of 21.1 seconds. He was overshadowed by Owens, much as his accomplishments have been overshadowed by those of his younger brother, Jackie, the Hall of Famer who broke baseball’s color barrier.

A track star at Pasadena City College in California, Mack Robinson could not afford the trip to New York for the Olympic trials, so a group of local businessmen raised $150 for his train fare. Robinson had no coach, and he qualified for the 200 in the same battered pair of spikes he had worn during the college track season.

He ran a sensational race in Berlin although his shoes continued to deteriorate. He nipped at Owens’s heels, and finishing four-tenths of a second behind gnawed at him.