IOC reinstates Jim Thorpe as sole winner of 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon

Jim Thorpe, stripped of his 1912 gold medals because he'd been paid to play minor league baseball, was reinstated Thursday as the sole winner of that year's Olympic decathlon and pentathlon by the International Olympic Committee.

Thorpe, voted the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century by The Associated Press, won the decathlon and pentathlon at the Stockholm Olympics. However, because he had played minor league baseball in 1909-10 — earning a reported $2 per game to $35 per week — he was stripped of the medals in 1913 for violating the existing amateurism rules. The Amateur Athletic Union in the United States withdrew Thorpe's amateur status, and the IOC unanimously stripped Thorpe for being a professional.

The decision has been controversial ever since, especially to Native American communities. Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and was the first Native American to win a gold medal.

After years of lobbying, the IOC Executive Committee reinstated Thorpe in October 1982, but said he was the co-champion with Hugo Wieslander (decathlon) and Ferdinand Bie (pentathlon). On Thursday, he was restored as the sole champion.

«This is a most exceptional and unique situation,» IOC president Thomas Bach said. «It is addressed by an extraordinary gesture of fair play from the concerned National Olympic Committees.»

«We are so grateful his nearly 110-year-old injustice has finally been corrected, and there is no confusion about the most remarkable athlete in history,» said Nedra Darling, the co-founder of Bright Path Strong, a group created to share Native American voices and a leading organization that fought for Thorpe — who died in 1953 — to regain his medals. She is also a citizen of the Prairie Band