Jesse Owens

Set or tied six world records in under an hour at the 1935 Big Ten Championships -- a specific, officially documented competitive result -- and his long-jump record from that day stood for twenty-five years.

Trained and competed simultaneously across four distinct events -- the 100m, 200m, long jump, and relay -- at a world-class level, rather than specializing in a single event.

Continued training and competing at the elite level through documented segregation-era hardships, including being required to use separate travel and lodging from his white teammates at some meets, and working multiple part-time jobs to support himself since he was not offered the same athletic scholarship support as white contemporaries.

Sustaining world-class competitive performance through these specific, documented conditions is the basis for the profile's persistence score. Persistence