The Greatest Athlete in the World

In 1912 the Olympic Games added two all-around events, the pentathlon and the decathlon, to find the most complete athlete on earth. The United States sent a 25-year-old Sac and Fox man from Oklahoma who had learned his sports at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. In nine days in Stockholm, Jim Thorpe won both events, and won them by wide margins.

1. 1887–1907 · Indian Territory to Carlisle

   Bright Path

   James Francis Thorpe is born in 1887 in Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma. He is Sac and Fox, and his Sauk name, Wa-Tho-Huk, means Bright Path. In 1904 he enrolls at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. In 1907, still in his street clothes, he walks up to the high jump and clears 5 feet 9 inches, a school record. Coach Glenn “Pop” Warner takes notice.

2. 11 November 1911 · Harvard Stadium

   Four field goals

   Harvard is one of the great powers of college football. Carlisle comes to Cambridge and beats it, 18–15. Thorpe kicks four field goals, and Alex Arcasa runs in the touchdown. Carlisle finishes the season 11–1. Walter Camp names Thorpe a first-team All-American, and he will make the team again in 1912. Football is his favorite sport. Track will make him famous.

3. 18 May 1912 · Celtic Park, New York

   Picked for Stockholm

   That spring Thorpe adds the pole vault, the javelin and the discus to his jumps, hurdles and shot put. At the U.S. Olympic trials at Celtic Park in Queens, he wins the pentathlon trial and three of its events. The decathlon trial is called off, and Thorpe is named to the team for both. Warner goes with him to Sweden, along with Carlisle distance runner Louis Tewanima.

4. 7 July 1912 · Pentathlon

   Four of five

   The pentathlon is new to the Olympics. Twenty-six men from 11 nations enter. Thorpe wins the long jump at 7.07 metres, the 200 metres in 22.9 seconds, the discus at 35.57 metres and the 1,500 metres in 4:44.8. His one miss is third place in the javelin, an event he had never competed in before 1912. The same day he qualifies for the high jump final.

5. 8 July 1912 · 10,000 metres

   Tewanima’s silver

   Louis Tewanima, a Hopi runner from Shungopavi on Arizona’s Second Mesa, lines up for the Olympic 10,000 metres final. Finland’s Hannes Kolehmainen wins in an Olympic record 31:20.8. Tewanima takes the silver in 32:06.6. No American will do better in the event until Billy Mills wins gold in 1964. Two Carlisle men have now won Olympic medals on back-to-back days.

6. 13–15 July 1912 · Decathlon

   Ten events

   Twenty-nine men from 12 nations enter the first Olympic decathlon. As the story is commonly told, someone has stolen Thorpe’s shoes, and he competes in a mismatched pair. It does not slow him down. He wins the shot put at 12.89 metres, the high jump at 1.87 metres and the 110 metre hurdles in 15.6 seconds. He finishes in the top four in all ten events.

   

7. 15 July 1912 · 1,500 metres

   The last race

   One event is left, the 1,500 metres. Thorpe already leads by more than 650 points. He wins the race anyway, in 4:40.1, the fastest time in the field. His total is 8,412 points, a world record, and 688 points ahead of Sweden’s Hugo Wieslander. Between his two golds he has also placed fourth in the Olympic high jump and seventh in the long jump.

8. 15 July 1912 · Closing ceremony

   Thanks, King

   King Gustaf V crowns each champion with a laurel wreath. Thorpe receives his two gold medals and two challenge prizes: a bronze bust from the King for the decathlon and a jeweled Viking ship from Czar Nicholas II of Russia for the pentathlon. Carlisle’s own magazine reports what the King told him. Tradition gives Thorpe’s answer in two words: “Thanks, King.”

   King Gustaf V to ThorpeYou, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world.
9. 24 August 1912 · New York City

   Ticker tape on Broadway

   The Olympic team comes home to a ticker-tape parade on Broadway, and Thorpe is the star of it. Mayor William Gaynor welcomes the athletes at City Hall. The Red Man counts 25,000 marchers in New York and 10,000 more at a parade in Philadelphia. Carlisle throws its own celebration for Thorpe and Tewanima. Thorpe said later he could not understand how one fellow could have so many friends.