‘Justice after 70 years’

Press, 15 October 1982, Page 36

‘Justice after 70 years’

NZPA Oklahoma City Seventy years of constant effort paid off for the family of the Oklahoma Indian athlete, Jim Thorpe, when the International Olympic Committee decided yesterday to restore Thorpe’s 1912 Olympic medals ano records. “Justice has finally been done for Jim Thorpe after 70 years,” said his son, Richard Thorpe. “We just can’t believe it. We’ve worked all our lives to get the records restored,” said Grace Thorpe, one of the athlete’s three daughters, in a telephone interview from her home in Tahlequah in eastern Oklahoma. “After all these years we are absolutely thrilled. It is unbelievable. The efforts of everybody the last 70 years has really brought this about,” said her sister, Gail Thorpe, also of Tahlequah. Several times in the 29 years since Thorpe’s death in 1953, the family has hoped that yesterday’s action would come, but each time their dreams have been shattered. Grace said her father, a very humble man, did not express any bitterness about being stripped of the medals when it was learned he had played semi-professional baseball in 1911. "I asked Dad about that, he didn’t seem to be too upset. He never tried to get the medals back. He didn’t disagree with the decision,” she said. She says his remarks were: “I know I won those races.” “All the time he never thought he did anything wrong,” said Mr Thorpe. Thorpe won the gold medals in both the decathlon and pentathlon. King Gustav of Sweden said at the 1912 Olympic

Games that Thorpe was “the greatest athlete in the world” and an Associated Press poll in 1950 ranked him the best athlete of the century’s first half. The 1.0. C. said the family would be given the medals in January. Richard Thorpe said he would prefer to wait and have a presentation in the 1984 Olympics. The medals are in the Olympic museum in Lausanne. In Lausanne, the 1.0. C. said: “The name of James Thorpe will be added to the list of athletes who were crowned Olympic champions at the 1912 games.” Thorpe’s exploits in American football are legendary. A powerful runner and excellent passer, he scored 25 touchdowns in 1912 for Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Institute and later played professional football for several American teams. He made his last football appearance in 1929 with the old Chicago Cardinals.