A Legend Dispossessed: The Day Jim Thorpe Lost His Gold

On January 26, 1913, the world of sports was rocked by a decision that remains one of the most controversial in Olympic history. Just months after King Gustav V of Sweden declared Jim Thorpe the “greatest athlete in the world” at the 1912 Stockholm Games, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) formally stripped the Native American icon of his gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon.

The catalyst for this downfall was a report in the Worcester Telegram revealing that Thorpe had played two seasons of semi-professional baseball in North Carolina for a meager $25 a week. In an era of militant amateurism, this was considered a professional “taint.” Despite Thorpe’s poignant plea to the AAU—in which he explained he was “simply an Indian schoolboy” who did not realize his actions were a breach of rules—the authorities were unforgiving.

On the day the decision was finalized, Thorpe’s name was struck from the official record books, and his trophies were ordered to be returned. The injustice was compounded by the fact that the protest against his status was filed well past the standard thirty-day window. This bureaucratic technicality effectively erased the greatest athletic performance of the century, beginning a decades-long struggle for restoration that would not be fully resolved until long after Thorpe’s death.