The story of Jim Thorpe’s posthumous reinstatement is, among other things, a study in how large international institutions reverse decisions they have made, and why those reversals tend to happen incrementally rather than all at once.

The IOC in 1982 was confronted with evidence that it had, in 1913, violated its own rules in accepting a protest after the established deadline.

It could have responded by fully reversing the 1913 decision — declaring Thorpe the sole champion, removing the co-championship designation, restoring his scores to the official record.

It did not do this.

The reasons involved competing obligations.

The athletes who had been given elevated status in 1913 were not simply bureaucratic placeholders.