Earle Elmer Meadows (June 29, 1913 – November 11, 1992) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 athlete who competed mainly in the pole vault

Pole vault

Pole vaulting is a track and field event in which a person uses a long, flexible pole as an aid to leap over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, as well as the Cretans and Celts...

 and broke the world record in 1937. He also cleared a height superior to the world record, but it was not ratified by the sport's governing body.

Meadows attended the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

. He competed for the United States in the 1936 Summer Olympics

Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics

At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, 29 athletics events were contested, 23 for men and 6 for women. The program of events was unchanged from the previous Games. There was a total of 776 participants from 43 countries competing.-Medal table:...

 held in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the pole vault where he won the gold medal.

His winning vault is featured in Leni Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl

Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...

's film Olympiad

Olympiad

An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....

, followed by a close-up

Close-up

In filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots . Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene...

 him saluting as the "Star Spangled Banner"" is played, crossfading to the US flag.