From time to time in every sport an athlete appears who is universally regarded as the best in the world. In the 1912 Olympic Games held at Stockholm, Sweden's capital, Jim Thorpe, a part native American, was such a person. He is the only man ever to have won, both, the decathlon and the pentathlon. He set world records in both events making those triumphs most impressive. However, Thorpe's medals were taken away a year later since it was found that he had been paid for playing baseball at the beginning of his career. In those days, of course, being paid for playing sport was against the principles of track and field. Between 1913 and 1919, he then went to play Major League baseball for the New York Giants, Boston Braves and Cincinnati Reds. In 1920, he went to play professional American Football and joined the Canton Bulldogs, one of the big teams in the league at the time. His football career ended in 1928 but  he will always be remembered as the greatest versatile sportsman who has ever lived. In 1982, the International Olympic Committee presented one of Thorpe's daughters with replicas of the medals which her father had rightfully won seventy years previously.

P.Figueras