The athletes who had been given elevated rankings in 1913 did not lose all recognition; they simply moved to the positions that more accurately reflected their performance behind Thorpe.

Thorpe’s grandson John, reached by journalists after the announcement, said he could hardly sleep when he heard the news.

“We’ve all waited so long for this and we’re ecstatic.

I just hope the war is over now and nothing else pops up.”

It had taken a hundred and nine years from the original disqualification.

What The Amateurism Rule Actually Was — And What It Was For

The disqualification of Jim Thorpe has sometimes been presented as straightforwardly a case of racial discrimination — the convenient application of a rule against a Native American athlete that would not have been applied against a white one.