The Ballads of the Games, Radio 2, preview Second of the new Radio Ballads, specially made and commissioned for the Olympic Games. After last week's general introduction, this one focuses on the 1936 Berlin Olympics and features Gretel Bergmann, a high jumper dropped from Germany's 1936 Olympic team because she was Jewish. She is 98 now and, as Margaret Lambert, has lived in New York for the past 72 years. That's where this interview was recorded. She remembers how assurances that she would be included were cast aside after America dropped a threatened boycott. But American runners Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were dropped from their nation's relay team. Were the Americans pressured not to give Jews prominence? If so, it backfired. They were replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, with Owens going on to win four gold medals. German historian Christiane Eisenberg describes that spectacular opening ceremony and the programme asks, in words and music, whether these were the Nazi Games? The Ballads of the Games is on Radio 2 on Monday July 9 at 10.00pm