LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) – Jim Thorpe was returned in Stockholm as the sole winner of the 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon – nearly 110 years after being removed from the gold medals for violating strict rules at the time.
The International Olympic Committee announced the change on Friday, following the 110th anniversary of Thorpe’s victory in the decathlon and subsequently declared “the best athlete in the world” by Swedish King Gustav V.
Thorpe, a Native American, returned to the band parade in New York, and only a few months later it was revealed that he had been paid to play minor league baseball for two years in violation of the rules of Olympic amateurism. In the so-called first major scandal in international sport, he was stripped of his gold medals.
For some, Thorpe remains the greatest all-rounder. He was named Athlete of the Half Century by the Associated Press in a 1950 poll by the Associated Press.
In 1982, 29 years after Thorpe’s death, the IOC awarded his family a double gold medal, but Olympic records were not restored and he was not the only gold medalist in the two events.
Two years earlier, Bright Path Strong’s petition advocated for Thorpe to be declared the overall winner of the pentathlon and decathlon in 1912. The IOC has included Thorpe in the official record book as co-champion.
“We applaud that a solution has been found thanks to the active involvement of Bright Path Strong,” said IOC President Thomas Bach. “This is an extraordinary and unique situation that was resolved by an extraordinary fair play action by the respective National Olympic Committees.”
Thorp’s Native American name, Wa-To-Hook, means “The Shining Path.” With the help of IOC member Anita DeFrantz, the organization contacted the Swedish Olympic Committee and the family of Hugo Wieslander, who won a gold medal in the 1913 decathlon.
“They confirmed that Wieslander never received the Olympic gold medal awarded to him and that they always had the idea that Jim Thorpe was the only legitimate Olympic gold medalist,” the IOC said, noting that the Swedish Olympic Committee agreed.
“The same statement came from the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports, where athlete Ferdinand Bie was the gold medalist when Thorp lifted the pentathlon title,” the IOC said in a statement.
Bee will be recorded as a silver medalist in the pentathlon and a silver medalist in the Wieslander decathlon.
The IOC said World Athletics, athletics’ governing body, has also agreed to change its records.
Thorpe tripled his closest competitor in the pentathlon and earned 688 points more than the decathlon runner-up.
At the closing ceremony, King Gustav V said to Thorpe, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”
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Source: Breitbart
