the other man on the podium

the bbc news ran a story today about peter norman, the silver medalist from australia in this famous 1968 olympics protest. i had heard about the protest, but i had not yet heard how he supported the two protesting american athletes, tommie smith and john carlos. the athletes had forgotten their black gloves, the gloves in the picture were norman’s. norman is also wearing the same equal rights badge. after this medal ceremony he spoke out about the white australia policy not yet made illegal.

tommie and john were banned from the olympic village and criticized widely. for supporting the protest, norman was criticized in the press and prevented from representing australia in future olympics — in spite of qualifying and was the only australian former olympic athlete omitted from participating in the 2000 sydney olympic opening ceremonies. but the US team embraced him in 2000, the bbc reports that hurdling legend ed moses greeted him at the door to the US team lodging, the US team gave him a place to stay during the games, and that year’s 200m champion michael johnson hugged him and told him, “you are my hero.”

you can read the bbc story and the links above for more details.

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