was the first great athlete of the twentieth century, a force of nature, the sportsman who excelled at all forms. After amazing the world in the 1912 Stockholm Games, winning two combined events (pentathlon and decathlon), was accused of professionalism and stripped of his Olympic medals. This is the peculiar history of the Red Indian Jim Thorpe.
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe, born on May 28, 1888 on an Indian reservation in the state of Oklahoma, has been one of the most comprehensive sports history, as well as master almost all types of athletic playing high level baseball, basketball, lacrosse and football. Although the latter was his favorite sport, and that was unveiled in his native country, was athletics that gave him worldwide fame.
native of Sac and Fox tribe , descended from the mother of Black Hawk (Black Hawk), the great chief of the mythical tribe, was the tribal name Wa Tho Huk (Bright Path), because the intense sunlight illuminating the path leading to the hut where he was born. Little Jim soon stood out for its exceptional faculty. He spent the first years of his life working with his father, running, hunting and fishing as a child of nature , which probably was the best "training" to an athlete as complete as it became.
The first steps of his career gave the boarding school of Indian Carlisle College in Pennsylvania, an institution dedicated to teaching Indian children which he joined at age 16. The death of his father takes him out of school, going to work for a couple of years on a farm. However, the young Jim missed the school environment and the intense sports activity developed there (football, baseball, athletics, basketball, lacrosse ...), so in 1907 decided to return to Carslile.
Equipped with a natural talent for sport and an impressive physique that aunaba strength, agility, speed and endurance (1.83 meters and 80 kilos of adult), his first interest went to the football, until One day his athletic ability caught the attention the prestigious Pop Warner coach , who took him under his wing and brought him become a complete athlete.
The most complete athlete
In the following years the sports progression Jim was brilliant. It was already a leader, and he led the "Indians" of Carlisle achieve great notoriety around the country, coming to win the national title in football. He was elected twice to the All-American , a national team of the best amateur players each season. "No one can stop it," he said of Pop Warner.
In the spring of 1912, including athletic accomplishments, get three firsts, two seconds and a third in college athletics championship against the University of Pennsylvania champion. age of 24, set as one of the greatest athletes of the moment, the Stockholm 1912 Olympic Games should be the ultimate test of athletic ability. and exceed the test with flying colors.
In those games were introduced for the first time the combined events pentathlon (long jump, javelin, 200 meters, discus and 1,500 meters) and decathlon (with the same disciplines as today, but then disputed in three days). In both, Thorpe wins with overwhelming superiority. In the pentathlon wins in four of the five tests, in the decathlon, four of the ten, setting a new world and Olympic record. His 8,412 points, corresponding to 7,232 according to the current scoreboard is a spectacular brand for the time and it would take 16 years to be whipped. Also, participate in the high jump final, where he finished fourth with a mark of 1.87 - and in the long jump (seventh with 6.89). "Allow me, to congratulate you. Are you the most amazing athlete who has ever seen, "said the King Gustav V of Sweden.
Stockholm Games Upon returning to his country as a hero, even starring in a traditional stop on Broadway in an open carriage reserved for very prominent people and events . Another great football season ends, being elected for the third time All-American, and in January 1913 he married his girlfriend Iva Miller. All are successful, life smiles ... but fate has in store, once again, a bad move.
Indictment of professionalism
Months later, a newspaper published in the summers of 1909 and 1910 had taken a salary $ 70 monthly for a small team of American League baseball. At that time, the amateur status involved an absolute prohibition of any form of compensation, so it was normal after the season of many university athletic registered with false names to play a few months in the professional leagues and earn money . Jim but also did not hide his identity, believing it did not contravene any rules. That would cost him dearly ingenuity.
After investigating the case, Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) of the United States deprived it of its status as amateur athlete, and the Committee International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to strip him of his medals, while his name and his records disappeared from all official classifications. Athletes who had been second in both tests (the Norwegian and Swedish Ferdinand Bie Hugo Wislander) refused to receive the gold medals Thorpe had to return as a gesture of admiration for him. The medals were kept for decades in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Bitter
Olympic disqualification after that he always considered unfair, Jim Thorpe, appointed by the American press as the best national athlete of the first quarter of the century, tried his hand at other sports, playing with success in the legendary New York Giants football league. Later, he joined other teams in football and baseball until his retirement in 1928. If for nearly a decade and succulent vintage sporting successes economic contracts, his last years as a professional athlete are marked by a succession of failures motivated by his many personal problems.
Jim Thorpe was not an easy personal life, repeatedly marked by tragedy and adversity. When he was eight years his twin brother died of meningitis, he was orphaned of both parents before the age of 18, his first child (he had eight) died in an influenza epidemic, divorced twice ... A list of adversities to which we must also add that it was the victim of racial discrimination because of his Indian roots, discrimination of which he was fully aware and against which always rebelled.
A life full of adversity
The death of his first son was plunged into a deep depression. Already serious and reserved, he was still bitter over the character and start binge drinking. Disagreements with his wife becomes more common, which leads to divorce, and starts to neglect logical training with the drop in athletic performance.
The Giants rescinded their contract, and from there began a period of continuous changes in equipment, and even times when he has a hard time finding a computer to keep playing, getting to spend calamities. After retiring, ruined and in crisis by the Great Depression - just doing all kinds of jobs to support his family : construction worker, as a porter at the docks, nightclub doorman, security guard, and even makes the movie extra in several films, primarily characterized by great Indian chief. However, your personal situation does not improve, the jobs did not last long and much of what he earns he spends in pubs.
Sunk into oblivion for years, is hospitalized in 1950, charitable, to be treated for oral cancer. A year later, a movie came to restore and enhance your figure. Directed by Michael Curtiz and Burt Lancaster give life to the athlete, Jim Thorpe: All American (1951) tells his life story and sports, and all the obstacles he had to overcome to become a sporting legend. One of the most emotional scenes includes an episode in 1932 during the celebration of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The idol of the masses once roam the near the Olympic stadium with no money to pay the entrance, when it is recognized by some spectators that take you to the VIP, which is acclaimed by the audience that crowded the Coliseum.
Jim Thorpe died on March 28, 1953 surrounded by his seven children and his third wife, dying of cancer, poor, alcoholic, without having been restored to its "Olympic honor", something that would not happen until 1982. Seven decades later of his exploits, the then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, was given to his heirs of two gold medals that were withdrawn . Jim Thorpe, the red that astonished the world in 1912, "the most wonderful athlete who has ever seen, "recovering well, officially, the recognition of some Olympic titles should never have lost.
