Luz Long’s Olympic silver auctioned for nearly $500K

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. (AP) — The silver medal captured by Luz Long, the German long jumper who befriended Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, sold at auction for $488,000. It’s a sum the auction house said was a record price for a publicly sold second-place prize. Long walked arm in arm through the stadium with Owens to celebrate their victories while Adolf Hitler watched from the stands. The family of the long jumper who was killed in World War II decided to auction the medal and other collectables. The auction house labeled the Luz collection as the “Beacon of Hope.” About a year ago, Bill Russell’s Olympic gold medal from the 1956 Games sold for $587,000. One of Owens’ gold medals sold for $1.46 million in 2013.