Track and Field’s Eulace Peacock, Rival of Jesse Owens, Dies at 82

Eulace Peacock, whose triumphs included seven victories over Jesse Owens, is dead at age 82.

Peacock died Friday in a nursing home, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Peacock, one of track and field’s leading athletes in the 1930s, missed the Berlin Olympics in 1936 because of an injury. Owens won four gold medals in those games.

He was regarded as Owens’ greatest rival, and in 1935 defeated Owens in seven of 10 meetings.

In the 1936 Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Peacock suffered a torn right hamstring. The injury hampered him two months later in the Olympic trials, and he finished 10th in the long jump and withdrew from the 100 meters.

Peacock was born in Dothan, Ala. on Aug. 27, 1914. In 1933 at Union High, he set a New Jersey scholastic long jump record of 24 feet 4 1/4 inches that stood until 1977, when Renaldo Nehemiah jumped 24-11.

Peacock is survived by his daughter, Linda DiGangi Fruendlich; a son, Eulace Clinton Peacock; and seven grandchildren. His wife, Betty, whom he married in 1942, died in 1989.