The campaign engaged directly with the specific obstacle that had prevented full reinstatement in 1982: the question of what happened to Bie and Wieslander.

They had been elevated to gold medal status in 1913.

They had been listed as gold medalists, or co-gold medalists, ever since.

Completing Thorpe’s reinstatement as sole champion required, in the IOC’s view, the consent or at least the agreement of the relevant national Olympic committees and, ideally, of the surviving families of the affected athletes.

What happened next was something that the advocates could not have guaranteed but that turned out to be true: both families, in Norway and Sweden, held the same view that Wieslander and Bie themselves had apparently held in their lifetimes.

They considered Thorpe to be the rightful champion.