The story was always that Hitler snubbed him, which wasn’t true. He probably hated him, but he did meet him- which FDR didn’t do. “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”

There were definitely no big endorsement deals back then. Back in 1948 when London last held the games, most of the British athletes had jobs centered around physically rebuilding their country after it had been hammered by the Nazis during the war. A guy who won a bronze in rowing got a medal without a ribbon, got drunk with his friends that night, then went back to bricklaying the next day.