Knowing that he needed to reach at least 7.15 metres (about 23 feet 5½ inches) on his third jump in order to advance to the finals in the afternoon, Owens sat on the field, dejected.

However, this conversation is apocryphal; Grantland Rice was watching Owens the entirety of the qualifying round and did not see him speak to Long.

Long won the silver medal for second place and was the first to congratulate Owens: they posed together for photos and walked arm-in-arm to the dressing room.

I would melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty-four karat friendship that I felt for Luz Long at that moment".

[9] Long's competition with Owens is recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's documentary Olympia – Fest der Völker.

During the Allied invasion of Sicily in Italy, Long was wounded on 10 July 1943, in the battle for the Biscari-Santo Pietro airfield, and died four days later in a British military hospital.

[19][20] Roads near sports facilities in Long's home town of Leipzig,[21] and in the Munich Olympia Park[3] of 1972, are named after him.