More than a century ago, two Native Americans won medals for the U.S. Olympic team in Stockholm, Sweden, Jim Thorpe, two gold medals; and Louis Tewanima, a silver medal.
Tewanima, a Hopi, participated as a long distance runner on the U.S. Olympic teams in 1908 and 1912 when he won the silver medal in the 10,000-meter in which he set the American record for the event. His record for American runners was not broken until another Native American runner, Billy Mills, of the Oglala Lakota tribe, broke the record in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo 52 years later.
Thorpe’s gold medals were for the new event, the pentathlon, and another event, the decathlon. He remains the only Olympian to have won both events, prompting King Gustav of Sweden to dub Thorpe as the, “…greatest athlete in the world.”
Thorpe, an All-American football player, led the tiny Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa. to a 27-6 victory in football over the mighty U.S. Military Academy’s Army team that Dwight D. Eisenhower, who became the 34th President of the U.S. after serving as Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, played linebacker for during the loss. Thorpe scored two touchdowns and kicked three field goals to lead his team to victory.
Thorpe’s heroics on the football field were accomplished for legendary coach, Glenn “Pop” Warner, inventor of the single wing formation. Warner motivated his team to win against Army by reminding his players that just 22 years earlier, the U.S. Army had fought the Lakota/Sioux at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
In 1913, the Amateur Athletic Union learned that Thorpe had been paid to play semi-pro baseball in 1911, and Thorpe was stripped of his two gold medals by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). At the time those who played for pay in any sport forfeited their amateur status unlike today when professional athletes are allowed to compete in the Olympics.
However, in 1983, the IOC reversed its decision and restored Thorpe’s records to the Olympic record books and returned the gold medals to Thorpe’s heirs, 30 years after his death.
The 1912 Olympic Games made history via the use of electronic timing devices and public address systems for the first time, and 2,400 athletes from 28 countries competed from May 5 till July 22.
The late Burt Lancaster starred as Thorpe in a 1951 Hollywood film titled “Jim Thorpe – All-American” directed by Michael Curtiz.
Thorpe, of the Sac & Fox Nation, was born on May 28, 1887 in Lincoln County, Ok. He died of a heart attack on March 28, 1953, a month before his 66th birthday.
Native Hawaiian, “Duke” Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohoa Kahanamoku, is credited with the popularizing the sport of surfing, and he distinguished himself by winning a gold medal in the 100 freestyle swimming event in the 1912 Olympic Games and by topping that feat in the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium by winning two more gold medals in the swimming competition.
It is un-telling how many gold medals he could have won as a swimmer had World War II not eliminated the 1916 Olympic Games while he was still in his prime.
Hawaii was not yet a state in 1912, but after it became a state on Aug. 21, 1959, “Duke” could be added as the third Native American who won a medal in the 1912 Olympic Games.
During the 1948 Olympic Games in London, Jesse “Cab” Renick, a Chickasaw, served as the captain of the U.S. Olympic basketball team that defeated France 65-21 in the gold medal game. He is credited with becoming the second Native American to win an Olympic gold medal. Perhaps the third if Kahanamoku is now considered to be the second winner after Hawaii became a state.
Mills, a relatively unknown long distance runner, shocked the world during the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games by winning the gold medal in the 10,000-meter competition in record time for an American runner. Mills of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) grew up in S.D. on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where the Battle of Wounded Knee took place.
The last Native American to win an Olympic gold medal is Theoren Fleury, a Metis/Cree, who won as a member of Team Canada during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Born in Canada, he was a member of the Canadian ice hockey teams in 1998 and in 2002. It had been 50-years since Canada won a gold medal by defeating the U.S. men’s ice hockey team in the 1952 Oslo Olympic Games.
“Duke” remains the only Native American athlete to win gold medals in two Olympics and leads Native American athletes with three, Mills remains the only American athlete to win the gold medal in the 10,000 meters and Thorpe remains the only athlete in history to win gold medals in both the decathlon and the pentathlon.
With the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China less than 100 days away, President Joe Biden has decided to withhold sending any U.S. government officials to Beijing to represent the U.S. as a protest against China’s human rights abuses.
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