Track and Field and Ethnic Diversity

Great Track and Field Athletes

One renowned athlete who greatly exemplified facets of the sport's diversity was Jim Thorpe. Over the past century, the legacy of Thorpe's athletic accomplishments has received great recognition and served to install him as a Native American icon and role model. Thorpe has been widely recognized as one of the greatest all-around athletes of all time. In addition to his accolades in other sports, he won multiple gold medals in the 1912 Olympics.

Jesse Owens showed, perhaps like no other athlete, how the Olympic Games provide a highly visible platform to demonstrate ways that track and field is able to impact not just individual nations but the world as well. Owens, an African [Page 2083]American, won four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, making a monumental impact on the “Nazi Olympics,” as German führer Germany Adolf Hitler was hoping to use the games to further his Aryan supremacy ideals and further promote his country's visibility and propagandized supremacy.

Jesse Owens shown at the beginning of his record-breaking 200-meter race during the Olympic Games in 1936 in Berlin. Owens was the most successful athlete at the summer games that year and won four gold medals.

The Rafer Johnson–C. K. Yang rivalry also drew attention to the social significance of the story of multicultural America. This rivalry was composed of two UCLA teammates: Johnson, who was an African American who excelled on the track from a young age, and C. K. Yang, who was raised in Taiwan and represented that country in the games. The two individuals competed for national supremacy in the 1960 Olympic decathlon in Rome and, along with Vasili Kuzbetsov of the Soviet Union, vied for dominance on a global scale.

Billy Mills, like Jim Thorpe before him, has served as a Native American role model and sports hero. Mills attained fame with his unlikely emergence as gold medal winner and world record holder for his performance in the 10,000-meter run at the Tokyo Games in 1960. He was further immortalized in the 1983 motion picture Running Brave.

One of the most visible events in track and field history occurred when elite athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their “Black Power” salute on the 200-meter race medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Games. Although very controversial, the event sparked great discussion and reflection about human rights as associated with the sport, the Olympic Games, and beyond. Carlos and Smith were aware of the impact that the Olympics have on the entire world as well as the fact that millions of people would be watching as they took the stand representing the United States. The “Black Power” salute was to protest against racism in the United States and uphold the importance of human rights.

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