Owens almost certainly said this, or something very close to it — ESPN’s SportsCentury, the IOC’s own Olympics.com, Wikipedia and Wikiquote all carry the line in his voice, and it fits a documented life. But it is a look back, not a remark from 1936: Wikiquote and Biography.com date it to a 1971 interview, and neither names the interviewer, the outlet or a transcript. The article they lean on prints the words with no date at all, so no primary source pins this exact wording.
“I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals” attributed to Jesse Owens (1913–1980). Widely reported from an interview dated 1971, but the interview has never been identified and no transcript or recording has been located. Via Quotle.info · Verbatim: “People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals.”
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of Jesse Owens — American sprinter · four Olympic golds, Berlin 1936. Theme: "I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The paper trail
Speaker
Jesse Owens
Occasion
An interview, dated 1971 by Wikiquote and Biography.com; interviewer and outlet unnamed
Cited in
“Owens pierced a myth,” ESPN SportsCentury
Primary source
None located — no transcript, recording or contemporaneous printing
“People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?” Owens said. “I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.”
Wording varies between printings
That is ESPN’s wording. The IOC’s Olympics.com ↗ prints the passage as one continuous quotation beginning “People say it was degrading…”, and Wikipedia ↗ adds a further sentence, “There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.”, which it sources to Jon Entine’s Taboo (PublicAffairs, 2000), p. 187.
The standard printing is Larry Schwartz’s ESPN SportsCentury profile “Owens pierced a myth” ↗, which quotes him: “People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?” … “I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.” Schwartz gives no date and names no interview.
Wikiquote ↗ lists the line with the citation “Interview (1971); also quoted in ‘Owens pierced a myth’ by Larry Schwartz in ESPN SportsCentury”, and does not flag it as disputed or misattributed. Biography.com ↗ likewise says “in an interview in 1971”. Neither names the interviewer or the publication.
The IOC’s Olympics.com ↗ introduces the same words with “So said Jesse Owens in later life” — framing it as a reflection, not a remark made in 1936.
The episode behind the line is squarely on the record. An Associated Press dispatch in the Rocky Mountain News of 27 December 1936 ↗ reports Owens beating a five-year-old gelding over 100 yards in Havana the previous day, off a 40-yard handicap, in 9.9 seconds — the horse named there as “Julio Macaw”.
Not public domain, and not confidently classifiable either. The wording comes from an interview Owens gave in later life — dated 1971 by the sources that carry it, far past the 1931 US public-domain line — but that interview has never been identified, so there is no work, publication date or rights holder to name. The printings that actually circulate, including ESPN’s SportsCentury profile ↗, are themselves in copyright. Quote the sentence with attribution; do not treat it as rights-free.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What actually goes wrong with this one
Nobody else is claiming this line — the credit to Jesse Owens is not in serious doubt. What travels wrongly is when he said it, how much of it he said, and how thin the sourcing underneath it really is.
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The dateNot a line from 1936 Misdated
It is regularly shared as Owens’s reaction on stepping off the boat from Berlin. It is a look back from decades afterwards: the IOC’s Olympics.com ↗ prefaces the same words with “So said Jesse Owens in later life”, and both Wikiquote and Biography.com ↗ place it in a 1971 interview.
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The wordingThe one-sentence version Truncated
“I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals” is the back half of an answer about the Havana horse race. ESPN ↗ prints it directly after “People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?”, and Wikipedia ↗ carries a third sentence — “There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.” — which it sources to Jon Entine’s Taboo (PublicAffairs, 2000), p. 187.
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The sourcingQuote aggregators Unsourced
AZQuotes ↗ shows the bare sentence and credits nothing but the ESPN web article — no interview, no date, no transcript. The aggregators are recycling a secondary retelling, and Quote Investigator ↗ has never taken the line up, so there is no specialist finding to lean on either.
✓Owens said it — the credit is solid, and the hardship behind it is documented down to the 9.9 seconds he ran against a horse in Havana. What is missing is a primary record: the ESPN SportsCentury profile that the quote sites cite, “Owens pierced a myth” ↗, carries the words with no date and no named interview, and nothing better has surfaced since.
Context
Why the line stings
Berlin, August 1936: Owens won the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the long jump and a relay gold and came home the most famous athlete alive. It bought him almost nothing. His amateur status was withdrawn after he declined a post-Games European tour, the commercial offers that had tempted him home dried up within months, and he took work as a petrol-station attendant, a playground janitor and the manager of a dry-cleaning firm.
On 26 December 1936, at the opening of Cuba’s international sports week in Havana, he lined up beside a five-year-old gelding, took a forty-yard start and won the hundred yards in 9.9 seconds. Reflecting on those years later in life he said: “Sure it bothered me. But at least it was an honest living. I had to eat.” The gold-medals line is that same answer, sharpened to a point — which is exactly why it travels, and exactly why it gets stripped of its date.
But at least it was an honest living. I had to eat.
Why this is filed as attributed rather than verified
The credit to Owens is not seriously in doubt. What is missing is the record. Wikiquote annotates the line “Interview (1971)” and points to Larry Schwartz’s ESPN SportsCentury profile; Schwartz’s article prints the words with no date, no interviewer and no publication. Biography.com repeats “in an interview in 1971” and adds nothing further. No transcript, recording, newspaper report or book citation for that interview has surfaced.
Two slightly different renderings also circulate. ESPN has “People said it was degrading…”; Olympics.com and Wikipedia have “People say it was degrading…”. Wikipedia carries a further sentence — “There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.” — which it sources to Jon Entine’s Taboo (PublicAffairs, 2000), p. 187. Small drift of that kind is the signature of a quotation passed hand to hand rather than read off a page.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1913–1980 · American sprinter · four Olympic golds, Berlin 1936
Born James Cleveland Owens in Oakville, Alabama in 1913, Owens won the 100 metres, 200 metres, long jump and 4×100 metre relay at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — four golds in eight days, in front of Adolf Hitler. What followed was not a fortune. His amateur status was stripped within weeks of the Games, endorsements never came, and he spent the late 1930s racing local sprinters, motorbikes and, in Havana, a racehorse for cash, before working as a petrol-station attendant, a playground janitor and a dry-cleaning manager. Only in the 1950s did public speaking and a Chicago public-relations business bring security; he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 and died in Tucson, Arizona in 1980.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available source
Larry Schwartz, “Owens pierced a myth,” ESPN SportsCentury, ESPN.com (archived 12 November 2017). Wikiquote and Biography.com date the remark to a 1971 interview; no transcript, recording or contemporaneous printing has been located.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-had-four-gold-medals-but-you-cant-eat-four-gold-medals/