Olympian legend Jim Thorpe had his running shoes stolen the morning of the 1912 Olympics. He found two mismatched shoes in a garbage bin and wore them, winning one silver and two gold medals.
Born on May 28, 1888, in present-day Oklahoma, Jim Thorpe was one of the most successful all-around American athletes of the 20th century. At the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, he won two gold medals, one for the decathlon and the other for the classic pentathlon (in which he won four of five events). When being awarded his medals, King Gustav V of Sweden told Thorpe, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”
However, only a year later, Thorpe was stripped of this honor after an investigation conducted by the Amateur Athletic Union revealed that he had played semiprofessional baseball from 1909 to 1910, disqualifying him from Olympic competition. Many people believe that Thorpe was deprived of his medals due to his ethnicity. It wasn’t until 1983 that the International Olympic Committee officially reinstated Thorpe’s medals and even that came at a cost—he was (and still is) listed as co-champion, rather than the all-out winner.
