Tag Archives: Olympic athletes

Jim Thorpe at the 1912 Summer Olympics

This Friday, May 25, the National Museum of the American Indian, a branch of the Smithsonian Institute, opens an exhibit displaying the achievements of Indigenous American Olympic athletes called “Best in the World: Native Athletes in the Olympics.”  It features, among, others, Jim Thorpe, Duke Kahanamoku, Andrew Sockalexis, Billy Mills and Louis Tewanima.  Tewanima competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics and won the Silver medal in Stockholm, Sweden four years later; setting an American record for the 10,000 Meters, which stood for more than 50 years until another American Indian, Billy Mills, won Gold in Tokyo in 1964.  Thorpe isn’t just one of the most famous Native American athletes; he is one of the best athletes the United States has ever produced – in or outside of the Olympics.  At the 1912 Stockholm Games, he became the first person to win both the Pentathlon and Decathlon, earning direct praise from Sweden’s King Gustav V who simply said, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”  Thorpe’s feat has never been duplicated.  Aside from being an Olympian, he also played professional football and professional baseball.  This latter fact compelled the U.S. Olympic Committee to consider him an athletic professional and therefore, unworthy of his achievements.  They removed his name from the records and stripped him of his medals.  After he died in 1953, however, pressure from his family and the public forced the USOC to restore Thorpe’s record and medals.  The exhibit runs through September 3, 2012.