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Who really said it

The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us

Attributed to Jesse Owens 1913–1980 · American sprinter and long jumper · four golds at the Berlin Olympics, 1936
Attributed In copyright

Owens really did write this — in the last months of his life, in a bylined article arguing against the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, syndicated by the Independent News Alliance and reprinted in full in the Congressional Record of 1 April 1980 ↗. But the wording that circulates has been altered: the article reads “far beyond Lake Placid or Moscow,” and it opens with a sentence the web copies drop, “The road to the Olympics does not lead to Moscow.”

Last verified 25 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us” Jesse Owens, in an article opposing the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, syndicated by the Independent News Alliance in the final months of his life. The documented wording is "The road to the Olympics does not lead to Moscow. It leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond Lake Placid or Moscow, Ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads, in the end, to the best within us." Reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Senate, 1 April 1980 (vol. 126 pt. 6, pp. 7247-48). Via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Estate of Jesse Owens and the Independent News Alliance). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Jesse Owens — American sprinter and long jumper · four gold medals at Berlin 1936. Theme: "The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us". 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.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us". 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 source

Occasion
Bylined article opposing the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics, syndicated by the Independent News Alliance, early 1980
Printed in
Congressional Record, Senate, 1 April 1980 (96th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 126 pt. 6, pp. 7247–48)
Also cited to
William J. Baker, Jesse Owens: An American Life (New York: Free Press, 1986); reprinted in Jessie Carney Smith, Black Heroes (Visible Ink Press, 2001)
Circulating wording
VOA Special English, People in America: “Jesse Owens,” written by Barbara Dash — first broadcast 7 June 2002 per Wikiquote’s citation; the surviving transcript is the rebroadcast of 20 December 2008

The road to the Olympics does not lead to Moscow. It leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond Lake Placid or Moscow, Ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads, in the end, to the best within us. The documented wording

This is the wording of Owens’s own article as the Congressional Record printed it on 1 April 1980 ↗, and the same four sentences run through the later print record — the Record again in 1991, a 1997 public-speaking textbook, and Jessie Carney Smith’s Black Heroes (2001) ↗. Later printings contract the opening to “doesn’t” and lower-case “ancient Greece.” The version that circulates online drops that opening sentence altogether and replaces Lake Placid with New York.

Congressional Record, Senate, 1 April 1980 (vol. 126 pt. 6, pp. 7247–48) — “Story by Jesse Owens” printed in full

How the wording travelled

In copyright

The article was published in 1980, and anything first published in the United States in 1931 or later is presumed still in copyright, so this line should be treated as in copyright rather than free to reproduce. The 1980 syndicating publisher is named in the Congressional Record as the Independent News Alliance; how the copyright is now divided between Owens’s estate and whoever succeeded that syndicate has not been traced, so both are named here as the conservative default. Short quotation with attribution is normal practice, but wholesale reuse is not something this page can clear.

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 the internet gets wrong

The name on this one is right. The words are not — and the two changes between what Owens said in 1980 and what the quote sites print are precisely the two that empty it of its argument.

“New York” — it was “Lake Placid” Altered

Owens’s own article carries “far beyond Lake Placid or Moscow,” as the Congressional Record printed it on 1 April 1980 ↗; the same wording runs on through the Record of 1991, a 1997 public-speaking textbook, and Jessie Carney Smith’s Black Heroes (2001) ↗. Lake Placid is a village in New York State, and it hosted the Winter Games from 13 to 24 February 1980 ↗. Owens was naming the two 1980 Olympics against each other — the American one going ahead, the Soviet one under threat. Enlarging the town into the state leaves “New York,” which was hosting nothing.

The opening sentence, deleted Truncated

Owens began: “The road to the Olympics does not lead to Moscow.” That is the claim; the famous sentences are its supporting argument. Cut it, and what is left starts at “leads to no city, no country” and reads as motivational wallpaper rather than a specific, unpopular position taken in a live political fight.

“Decade unknown” Undated

Wikiquote files the line under ‘decade unknown’ and cites a Voice of America programme broadcast on 7 June 2002 ↗ — a radio profile made long after Owens’s death, which itself gives no date or occasion. That citation is why almost every quote page presents this as a timeless Olympic aphorism instead of a dated intervention in the boycott of 1980.

Owens wrote it in 1980, and he wrote it to argue that Americans should go to Moscow. The version that travels has had the boycott taken out of it — but the argument survives whole, in his own words, in the Congressional Record of 1 April 1980 ↗, the day after he died. Quote Investigator has traced two other Owens lines, but not this one ↗.

Context

Why he said it

In January 1980 President Jimmy Carter told the United States Olympic Committee that American athletes would not go to Moscow that summer unless Soviet troops left Afghanistan. Jesse Owens — the one American whose Olympic record was itself a political argument — came down against the boycott. He had spent forty years being invoked as the man who beat Hitler at Hitler’s own Games, and his conclusion from that was the opposite of the one Washington was drawing: you win these arguments by turning up, not by staying home.

That is the sentence the internet has lost. Owens did not open with uplift. He opened with a refusal: the road to the Olympics does not lead to Moscow — meaning the Games are not the property of the country hosting them, so a host country’s crimes are not a reason to abandon them. Everything after that is the proof: not Lake Placid, where the Winter Games were running that February; not Moscow; not ancient Greece; not Berlin in 1936, which he knew better than anyone. He did not live to see the vote. He died on 31 March 1980.

The road to the Olympics does not lead to Moscow.

What is still unresolved

The form is settled: Owens wrote it. The Congressional Record of 1 April 1980 introduces the passage as coming from “a story which was published by the Independent News Alliance this year” and prints the whole thing under the heading “Story by Jesse Owens,” in the first person — a syndicated newspaper article, not an off-the-cuff answer. That squares with a July 1984 magazine notice, found only as a search snippet, which says Owens “wrote” the words “in a March 1980 article strongly opposing the U.S. boycott of Moscow’s Games.” Jessie Carney Smith’s Black Heroes later frames him as “responding to reporters’ questions regarding the upcoming Olympics” — a secondary description written two decades on, and the odd one out.

What is still open is narrower: which newspapers ran the Independent News Alliance release, and on what date. The text itself is stable. Searches of digitised print return the same four sentences from 1980 onward — in the Congressional Record for 1980 and again in 1991, in a 1997 public-speaking textbook, and in Black Heroes in 2001 — always with “Lake Placid or Moscow,” always with the opening line intact. The trimmed, re-lettered version appears in a Voice of America radio profile, and from there in the quote databases.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Congressional Record, Senate, 1 April 1980 — “Story by Jesse Owens”govinfo.gov

The earliest located text. Senator Ted Stevens introduces “a story which was published by the Independent News Alliance this year” and has it printed entire at pp. 7247–48, ending on “far beyond Lake Placid or Moscow, Ancient Greece or Nazi Germany.” A large scanned PDF; search it for “road to the Olympics.”
Jesse Owens on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Files this line under “decade unknown” with the “New York or Moscow” wording, citing a Voice of America programme by Barbara Dash broadcast 7 June 2002 — the citation the quote sites inherited.
Baker, Jesse Owens: An American Life (1986)archive.org

The Internet Archive record for the standard biography (New York: Free Press, 1986) that later writers cite for this statement; borrowing is access-restricted.
Black Heroes (2001) — in-volume searchbooks.google.com

Google Books confirms a page in Jessie Carney Smith’s reference work matching the phrase “Lake Placid or Moscow” — the wording the web version replaces.
VOA Special English: Jesse Owensmanythings.org

A transcript of the Voice of America profile written by Barbara Dash. The accessible copy is headed as the Special English rebroadcast of 20 December 2008, presented by Gwen Outen and Steve Ember; the 7 June 2002 first-broadcast date comes from Wikiquote’s citation, not from the transcript. It carries the “New York or Moscow” wording and gives no date, occasion or source for the statement.
Quote Investigator: Jesse Owensquoteinvestigator.com

QI has traced two Owens sayings, both about “finding the good.” This one is not among them — there is no QI ruling to defer to here.
1980 Winter Olympicsen.wikipedia.org

Confirms the Games Owens actually named: Lake Placid, New York, 13–24 February 1980, running while the Moscow boycott was being decided.

About the speaker

Who was Jesse Owens?

Jesse Owens

1913–1980 · American sprinter and long jumper · four gold medals at Berlin 1936

James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama, in 1913 and won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the long jump and the 4×100-metre relay — in front of Hitler. Fame did not translate into a living: he returned to a segregated America, raced against horses for money, went bankrupt, and only much later became a paid goodwill ambassador and public speaker, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. He spent the final months of his life arguing, unsuccessfully, that President Carter should drop his demand that the United States boycott the Moscow Games; he died of lung cancer in Tucson, Arizona, on 31 March 1980.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

How to cite this

Jesse Owens, untitled article opposing the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, syndicated by the Independent News Alliance, early 1980; reprinted in full as “Story by Jesse Owens,” Congressional Record, Senate, 1 April 1980, 96th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 126 pt. 6, pp. 7247–48. Also quoted in William J. Baker, Jesse Owens: An American Life (New York: Free Press, 1986), and reprinted in Jessie Carney Smith, Black Heroes (Visible Ink Press, 2001). Which newspapers carried the syndicated release, and on what date, has not been traced.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-road-to-the-olympics-leads-to-no-city-no-country-it/

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