Growing up on the farm, she would run barefoot behind a plow. The Stephens family farm had no running water, no electricity, and no money for luxuries, so Helen built her strength pushing a steel plow through hardened earth and built her endurance chopping wood before sunrise. Her high school had no girls’ track team and no budget for female athletics. So why did she run? She ran because running was free.
In less than a year, Helen Stephebs would outrun Hitler’s empire. The year was 1936, and the world was watching Berlin. Adolf Hitler intended to use the Olympic Games to prove his theories of racial superiority to the world. But in rural Missouri, during the crushing devastation of the Great Depression, eighteen-year-old Helen Stephens had never owned a pair of running shoes. She barely had a pair of shoes to her name.
In the spring of 1935, her physical education teacher, W. Burton Moore, watched her sprint 50 yards on a dirt path behind the school. When his stopwatch stopped, he couldn’t believe what he saw and checked it twice; young Helen had just tied the world record on a gravel road. One year later, Helen qualified for the United States Olympic team. But getting her to Europe to compete, however, would prove to be a challenge. The Olympic committee provided minimal funding for women’s track and field. Female athletes were largely expected to pay their own way.
But the town of Fulton, Missouri, refused to let their home-town champion stay home. Citizens collected pennies in coffee cans. Local merchants donated what they could. They raised just enough to buy her a ticket on the SS Manhattan. During the nine-day voyage across the Atlantic, Helen jogged on the wooden deck to stay in shape while wealthier passengers looked on in amusement.
In Berlin, she looked nothing like the European athletes with their polished, state-funded training programs. She was a farm worker among international elite athletes. Helen had no professional coaching, no sponsorships, and none of their refinement—only her speed.
When August 4, 1936 began, one hundred thousand spectators filled the concrete tiers of the Olympic stadium in Berlin. Military brass bands played relentless marches. Giant banners hung from the upper decks. The defending 100-meter champion was Stella Walsh of Poland, the woman Helen had defeated just once before. The German crowd expected their own athlete, Käthe Krauß, to win. Adolf Hitler watched from his private box directly above the finish line.
Helen Stephens walked determined to the starting line. Lacking mechanical starting blocks, she knelt and dug her footholds into the cinder track by hand. The pistol fired.
By the 50-meter mark, she had pulled ahead. The roar of the German crowd began to fade into an uncomfortable silence. She crossed the finish line in 11.5 seconds—a world record that would stand untouched for twenty-four years. She had beaten her opponent Walsh by two full yards.
Following her victory, accusations surfaced. The Polish athletic federation filed a formal protest, claiming no woman could physically run that fast. Olympic officials entertained the claim and required Helen to undergo a medical examination to verify her sex. She submitted to the invasive procedure. They confirmed she was female and handed back her clothes. No apology was ever offered or received. It had taken Helen eleven and a half seconds to win the Olympic gold medal. It took over an hour for them to let her keep it.
Helen Stephens returned to Fulton, Missouri a few weeks later. In 1936, there were no million-dollar endorsements or professional leagues for women. She played exhibition basketball to pay rent, served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, and eventually took a steady job at the Defense Mapping Agency in St. Louis, where she quietly worked for three decades.
Helen Stephens’ world record stood until 1960, finally broken by Wilma Rudolph. She died in 1994 at the age of 75 and her gold medal now sits in a glass case at William Woods University in her hometown.
God gives all of us unique natural abilities. Some working with our hands, some to be able to communicate, some spiritual discernment, and some physical prowess. Helen started off with the odds against her, but there was no stopping her from crossing that finish line!
Scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7: “There are different kinds of gifts. But they are all given to believers by the same Spirit. There are different ways to serve. But they all come from the same Lord. There are different ways the Spirit works. But the same God is working in all these ways and in all people. The Holy Spirit is given to each of us in a special way. That is for the good of all.”
Tagged: farm life, world war II
