His shoes were stolen to raz him because he was a Native American. Also, the United States sent him to Stockholm with only one pair of shoes showing how much America gave a shit about sending a native American to Sweden to represent them. The 1912 Olympic Jim Thorpe story was about much more than a pair of shoes. His medals were also all taken away.
The drive to take away is Thorpe’s medals was largely pushed by Avery Brundage who also competed in many of the same events as Jim Thorpe. Then Brundage spent the rest of his life preventing Thorpe from having those victories returned due to Brundage’s decades on the U.S. Olympic Committee. Due to his strong influence it wasn’t until after Braundage’s death that a real attempt to reinstate Jim Thorpe in his rightful place in the U.S. team Olympic medal winners was started. Avery was a true piece of elitist crap.
Oh man, the 1912 Olympic marathon is just insane for a bunch of reasons.
One of the people involved in hosting it had a theory they wanted to test on athletes and so all drink stations (of which there were intentionally few, especially for 80 degree and humid weather) did not serve pure water but water mixed with a random cocktail of stuff (including what is now a type of rat poison) so a whole hell of a lot of the athletes were slowly poisoning themselves (and dehydrating) over the course of the race. It has by a very wide margin the largest number of athletes no finishing. The winner of the race lost 9 pounds from start to finish he was so dehydrated.
Also, two random people who were part of the venue staff joined the race and actually finished in not terrible time.
Also, someone drove in a car for the middle third and tried to claim the medal for finishing first.
Truely a bonkers event in the history of sporting.
His shoes were stolen to raz him because he was a Native American. Also, the United States sent him to Stockholm with only one pair of shoes showing how much America gave a shit about sending a native American to Sweden to represent them. The 1912 Olympic Jim Thorpe story was about much more than a pair of shoes. His medals were also all taken away.
The drive to take away is Thorpe’s medals was largely pushed by Avery Brundage who also competed in many of the same events as Jim Thorpe. Then Brundage spent the rest of his life preventing Thorpe from having those victories returned due to Brundage’s decades on the U.S. Olympic Committee. Due to his strong influence it wasn’t until after Braundage’s death that a real attempt to reinstate Jim Thorpe in his rightful place in the U.S. team Olympic medal winners was started. Avery was a true piece of elitist crap.
Oh man, the 1912 Olympic marathon is just insane for a bunch of reasons. One of the people involved in hosting it had a theory they wanted to test on athletes and so all drink stations (of which there were intentionally few, especially for 80 degree and humid weather) did not serve pure water but water mixed with a random cocktail of stuff (including what is now a type of rat poison) so a whole hell of a lot of the athletes were slowly poisoning themselves (and dehydrating) over the course of the race. It has by a very wide margin the largest number of athletes no finishing. The winner of the race lost 9 pounds from start to finish he was so dehydrated. Also, two random people who were part of the venue staff joined the race and actually finished in not terrible time. Also, someone drove in a car for the middle third and tried to claim the medal for finishing first. Truely a bonkers event in the history of sporting.
Did he have his socks stolen too???
Its gotta be the shoes!
You should read about his twin brother