NEW YORK, Jan. 7 (JTA) Marty Glickman, a track star who believed he was denied a chance to run in the 1936 Berlin Olympics because he was Jewish and who later became a top sports announcer, died Jan. 3 at the age of 83.
He died of complications from heart surgery, according to one of his daughters, Elizabeth Alderman.
Glickman claimed that the coach in charge of the 400-meter relay team, who dropped him and Sam Stoller, another Jew, from the team the day before the race, was a Nazi sympathizer.
Glickman made similar charges against Avery Brundage, the head of the United States Olympic Committee.
The charges were not proved, but in 1998, the president of the USOC said he believed Glickman’s allegations were correct.
That year, the committee presented Glickman with a plaque in lieu of the gold medal he would have earned as a member of the victorious relay team.
The 1936 Olympics are notorious because they were staged by Hitler to demonstrate the superiority of Aryan culture. Ironically, the star of the Games was an African American, Jesse Owens who won his fourth gold medal as one of the replacements for Glickman and Stoller.
The son of a textile salesman and a homemaker, Glickman was born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn.
Glickman later became well known as a sports announcer for New York professional sports teams.
He was a radio announcer for the New York Knicks basketball team when they were formed in 1946, and later called games for both the New York Giants and New York Jets football teams.
Glickman is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.
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