Jim Thorpe Is Restored as Sole Winner of 1912 Olympic Gold Medals (Published 2022)

Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest athletes in history and the victim of what many considered a century-old Olympic injustice, has been restored as the sole winner of the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Games.

Thorpe, who excelled at a dozen or more sports, had dominated his two events at the 1912 Games in Stockholm but was stripped of his medals after it emerged that he had earned a few dollars briefly playing professional baseball before his Olympic career. American officials, in what historians considered a blend of racism against Thorpe, who was a Native American, and a fanatical devotion to the idea of amateurism, were among the loudest proponents of his disqualification.

The International Olympic Committee’s recognition of Thorpe, announced on Friday, comes 40 years after it declared him the co-winner of both events. But the restoration in 1982 was not enough for his supporters, who carried on campaigning on behalf of Thorpe, an American icon who is particularly revered in Native American communities.

The athletes who were declared champions by the I.O.C. after Thorpe’s disqualification — Hugo Wieslander, a Swede who placed second in the decathlon, and Ferdinand Bie of Norway, who finished behind Thorpe in the pentathlon — expressed great reluctance to accept their gold medals after Thorpe had been stripped of his victories in 1913. The I.O.C. said it had consulted Sweden and Norway’s Olympic committees and Wieslander’s surviving family members before reinstating Thorpe as the sole champion of both events.

Bie and Wieslander will now be co-silver medalists of their events. The current silver and bronze medalists will not be demoted.

“This is a most exceptional and unique situation,” the president of the I.O.C., Thomas Bach, said. “It is addressed by an extraordinary gesture of fair play from the concerned National Olympic Committees.”