PETER NORMAN Dead

PETER NORMAN, a wonderful man and a wonder of an athlete, reached the finish line today in Melbourne, Australia.

He will be remembered as the middleman, the little white guy who split two giants of American sprinting, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, in the 200m final at the Mexico Olympic Games in 1968.

Moreover, he will be honoured for taking a supportive although not overt position in the so-called Black-Power medal ceremony in which Smith and Carlos mounted the dias in black socks and, heads bowed, each raised a black gloved fist during the American anthem.

For this Smith and Carlos were thrown out of the athletes village and they became pariahs in American sporting life until at least the early 1980s, by which time the damage to their personal lives had become irreparable.

IN winning the silver medal, Norman clocked 20.06sec which remains the Aussie record. As he waited for the ceremony, an always thoughtful and switched-on Norman said he believed in the cause motivating the Movement For Human Rights Project.

They gave him a button to wear on his tracksuit jacket, which he did during the ceremony.

For many years he maintained contact with the men who shared the podium with him, more so with Smith however, for whom he had a high regard as a man.

I met Peter Norman in 1970. He became a friend. Consistent, good company on the rare occasions we managed to catch up, no airs and graces about him, no deceptions, always telling it as he saw it, always with good humor, always happy to have a beer and for him the glass was always half full.

I bumped into him at the Sydney Olympics. He showed me the dreadful scar left by a golden staph infection he contracted in hospital in Melbourne when he had Achilles tendon surgery. Half the soleus muscle was gone. All that was left was bone and tendon it seemed.

“It was a worry there for a while. I’m happy though. I’m still buying my shoes in pairs,” he laughed.

Several weeks ago out of the blue I telephoned him and he sounded frail. He had, he said, just had a heart attack, at 64.

“I had felt pretty ordinary, a little upset during the night and decided to take myself down to the hospital in the morning,” I remember him telling me.

“They ran some tests and the doctor said, you’ve had more than a ‘little upset’ you’ve had a major incident. We’re going to run some more tests on you in the next six weeks or so.”

Norman checked into hospital a couple of weeks later and an angiogram operation went badly wrong, as these things can, when the wire cut off the corner of an artery valve.

He never did have much luck in hospital.

I don’t know much about the heart structure, but that’s how I recall him explaining it to me when I rang him a couple of weeks later.

"I went in for the angiogram and after that, they put me back in and I ended up with triple bypass surgery,’’ he said. "But I’m getting better. I’ve slowed up a bit but I’ve already walked down to the supermarket to get the groceries.’’

I spoke to him again a couple of days later and he said his girls (daughter and wife) had rallied around him.

That was a few weeks ago. I’d been meaning to call again to catch up. I kept putting it off. I wish I hadn’t. I will miss him terribly.

Earlier this year he delivered to me an A4-size colour photograph of that iconic Mexico medal cermony protest. Smith, Carlos and Norman had all personally signed it.

I thought it was appropriate that Peter Norman, like Smith and Carlos, had signed it in gold ink.

for us aussies its hard not to admire the man, I had only met him once in melbourne quite a few years ago and maybe only for 10mins max but the impression he left on people he met was unforgetable.

that moment in time/sport he was involved in would surely be one of the olympic games top 10 moments.

KK cherish that print for all its worth…

hopefully we can dig out some info for this thread on the stats of Norman.

Some stats on the legendary Australian sprinter, who will be long remembered since his 20.06 AR seems to be out of reach.

Born June 15, 1942.
1.78m, 73kg

Personal Bests :
100y 9.5, 100m 10.3, 200m 20.0, 220y 20.8, 400m 46.9, 440y 47.3.

Progression :
1959 - 11.2, 22.1
1960 - 11.0, 21.8
1961 - 10.7, 21.3
1962 - 10.7, 21.2
1963 - 10.7, 21.3
1964 - 10.7, 21.1
1965 - 10.7, 21.1
1966 - 10.6, 20.9
1967 - 10.5, 20.7
1968 - 10.3, 20.0
He was 200m Australian champion in 1966, 67, 68, 69, 70.

Ran his best automatic times in Mexico Olympics : 20.23 in heats (Olympic Record, Area Record, previous personal best 20.5ht), 20.44 in quarter-final, 20.22 in semis, 20.06 in Final.

Great loss.

KK you will always have the memories - cherish and love them.

His deeds in Mexico speak volumes for him.

1968 Olympic 200m medal ceremony - l to r - Norman, Smith, Carlos (Mark Shearman)

Peter Norman dies of a heart attack
Tuesday 3 October 2006
Australian 200m record holder Peter Norman died this morning of a heart attack at the age of 64.

Norman had held the Australian 200m record of 20.06 since his silver medal winning performance at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. That final was made more famous by the Black Power salute carried out at the medal ceremony by Americans Tommy Smith, the winner, and bronze medallist John Carlos, who standing shoeless, wore black gloves and raised their clench fists during the playing of the American national anthem in protest against racial discrimination in the United States.

Less well known is that Norman, a good but until the Olympics an unheralded sprinter, wore a badge on his track suit, in support of the Americans’ cause, that of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. The Australian was also the one who suggested that Smith and Carlos share the black gloves used in the salute, as Smith had originally planned to wear both.

Recalling the impact the protest made, Norman commented last year - “It was like a pebble landing in the middle of a pond, and the ripples are still travelling.”

In the Olympic final itself, Norman destroyed his pre-Olympic best by 0.5 with 20.0 (20.06 – automatic timing), overtaking a decelerating Carlos in the last five metres of the race to take silver. In the opening round of his Olympic campaign, Norman had run an Olympic record of 20.2 (20.23), a time which he repeated in his semi-final.

In 2000, Norman was awarded an Australian Sports Medal for his significant contribution as a competitor, and in 2005, he was reunited with Smith and Carlos at San Jose State University for the unveiling of a statue commemorating the 1968 protest.

At the 2006 Athletics Australia Invitational at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), Norman presented current Australian 400m champion John Steffensen - who the next month in the MCG was to become Commonwealth champion - with a copy of the Mexico City podium, autographed by himself, Smith and Carlos.

IAAF

news of his death has been on all major usa new sites… the dallas news.com has this on their site rehashed from 2000 games.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Kevin B. Blackistone’s column
'68 protest more than a memory

09/29/2000

By Kevin B. Blackistone / The Dallas Morning News

SYDNEY, Australia – Peter Norman and I were chatting Thursday in a hallway outside the luxury box at Olympic Stadium where he planned to watch the men’s 200 final. A woman in chef’s togs walked by. She was stopped in her tracks by the emblem on Norman’s white golf shirt. It was the crest of USA Track and Field and around it was written: “Olympic Team 1968 30th Reunion.”

“Excuse me,” the woman said to Norman. “Who are you? Are you someone famous?”

After a moment of pulling the woman’s leg, Norman confessed his identity.

He asked her if she’d ever seen the photo of the black fellows on the Olympic medal stand with black-gloved fists raised over their heads.

“Yeah, sure,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “I was the short chubby white guy beside them.”

Peter Norman doesn’t look anything like his picture anymore. His once curly black mane has surrendered to gray. It is cut in what the Aussies call a shave, or what we call a buzz cut. He sports spectacles and a white mustache. He’s not quite in the sporting trim he was when he was setting the Australian 200-meter record and winning silver in the Olympic 200 at Mexico City.

But Norman recalled that famous day 32 years ago with Tommie Smith and John Carlos as if it were yesterday.

“Once we were downstairs, the guys told me what was going to happen,” Norman said, remembering the moments just before the three medal winners were led out of the room beneath the stadium and out onto the track for the medal ceremony.

Norman said he saw the black gloves. Smith was prepared to don both until Norman said he suggested the pair share them.

“I actually thought John would wear the left one on his right hand,” Norman said.

Norman said he asked the two if there was anything he could do to support them.

“I asked John if he had a spare badge for their human rights organization,” Norman said. “John said he didn’t, but on the way to the victory stand, John called over the fence to one of his friends who had a badge. He took the badge from him and gave it to me.”

Norman slapped it on his warm-up jacket over his heart. The trio went to the medal stand. They were given their medallions. The U.S. national anthem began to play.

“There was a guy in the stands who was singing the U.S. anthem so loud it boomed right across the track,” Norman said. “We got about four bars in, and he just tailed off.”

Smith and Carlos were standing with heads bowed and fists punching the night like thunderbolts.

“Every emotion turned loose on them,” Norman said. “There was vocal retaliation.”

The Americans were told not long afterward to get out of town, which they did.

“The next morning … the chef de mission [or team leader] called me into his office,” Norman said. “He asked what happened out there. He said some of the press wanted me reprimanded [for wearing the badge].”

Norman said, however, that he was spared any harsh punishment from his Olympic team bosses. He didn’t wind up a target of much displeasure from his countrymen, either.

“I didn’t get off nearly as bad as the other guys did,” Norman said. “People don’t realize that for those two guys, they sacrificed their lives for a cause they believed in. And it was peaceful and nonviolent.”

Norman was never ostracized back home as Smith and Carlos were in the United States. Norman lives in Melbourne, Australia, nowadays, where he works with the Department of Sport and Recreation. He hosted a training session for Marion Jones and some other U.S. Olympic sprinters before they traveled to Sydney.

He said he’s kept in touch over the years with the more famous figures in that photo, too. He said he’s since lost the badge Carlos awarded him but has several copies of the picture they all made.

“To be involved in a very small way in history like that, it lives with you forever,” Norman said. “It’s a bond.”

He’s proud of it, too, even if most others have long forgotten about the white fellow in the left-hand side of the famous, or infamous, photo, depending on your political persuasion.

It is only every now and then, Norman said, that someone asks him if he was the other guy in the picture. It’s an opportunity he appreciates to tell them the story, as he did Thursday with the young woman in chef’s togs.

She thanked him excitedly and went on her way before returning a few minutes later with a napkin and pen in hand.

“May I have your autograph,” she asked Norman.

He obliged.

Peter Norman was famous again for at least a moment.

One of the last emails I received from Peter Norman was in response to a bunch of performance stats on Tommie Smith (The Jet) provided by Pierrejean in the course of PJ’s collation of such information. Peter wrote back, as follows: . . .

"That Guy could run a bit couldn’t he. It would have taken a pretty good
sort of an athlete to even get within say .23 sec of him on any given day
even if he did have a sore leg that stopped him from doing his best on the
curve.

"I should confess that I lent him a helping hand in two of those runs, the
first ever sub 3 min 4x400 relay when he ran the 43.8 on July 24 1966.

"That was when one Gary Eddy wouldn’t run the 4x400 and I got the 3rd leg
against a guy who was “only” a 200 runner and I pushed him all the way
(from about 40m behind) I must have really worried him that day, and of
course his 19.83 200m on Oct 16 / 1968, that one is well documented.

"I wonder how he would have fared in a certain “Small Country Town Picnic
Handicap” race held around Easter each year.

Cheers & Beers
Peter "

Note: the cryptic mention of a “small country picnic handicap” was in reference to the Stawell Gift, the oldest annual footrace in the world. It is a meet given far greater importance in some parts of Norman’s home town than the Olympic final. He was always bemused.

CF FORUM ARCHIVES … a couple of articles concerning the huge statue erected on the campus at San Jose State University showing a reproduction of the Mexico Olympic 200m medals ceremony protest. Unfortunately to my way of seeing things, Norman is absent from the three level podium which features only the gold and bronze medallists.

It shows the sort of guy Peter was that he thought it was correct that he should not have been part of the statue because he wasn’t a San Jose State student, wasn’t one of their athletes and was little more than a bystander to history.

I pointed out the insult of “changing history” to the powers that be at San Jose State and the university was so embarrassed, it eventually flew Peter over for the unveiling and he was thrilled because it gave him an opportunity to catch up with Tommie Smith and John Carlos again.

Newspaper reports written after the unveiling make it clear that Norman was still very politically astute and active. He suggested it was time that a new generation of athletes pricked the conscience of the Chinese people by making a similar statement, albeit not a copycat protest. He said the most powerful statement would be one from a Chinese track gold medallist in Beijing in 2008. But he feared such a gesture could prove fatal for a PRC competitor once the Olympic caravn rolled on.

http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=11017&highlight=peter+norman

Norman dies after heart attack

October 03, 2006 AUSTRALIAN sprinter and civil rights supporter Peter Norman, the third figure in one of the most famous sporting protests of all time, died from a heart attack. He was 64.

Norman ran the race of his life to claim the silver medal in the 200 metres at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in 20.06 seconds, a time that still stands as the Australian record.

But it was his support of the black power protest by US runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the medal dais that cemented his place in sporting history.

Smith and Carlos, barefooted and each wearing a single black glove, bowed their heads in silent protest at racial discrimination in the United States while the Star Spangled Banner was being played.

Norman, who was a Salvation Army Officer, was one of the few people who knew in advance what Smith and Carlos planned to do.

In support of their protest he wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge.

It was also Norman’s suggestion that Smith and Carlos wear one glove apiece after Carlos forgot to bring his gloves to the podium.

The two Americans were sent home in disgrace the following day by the US Olympic Committee under pressure from the International Olympic Committee.

Many Americans were harshly critical of the protest, misinterpreting it as being supportive of the Black Panthers.

Norman was cautioned by Australian team chef de mission Judy Patching, but was allowed to remain with the team in Mexico City.

“I believe in civil rights, every man is born equal and should be treated that way,” he said.

Norman’s time of 20.06 would have won him the 200m gold medal at every subsequent Olympics until 1984.

He also won five straight national 200m titles from 1966-70 and claimed the bronze medal in the 4x110 yards relay at the 1966 Commonwealth Games.

Australian Olympic Committee president and IOC member John Coates paid tribute to Norman as an athlete “to whom social justice was important”.

“He was still our fastest 200m runner which is a remarkable feat 40 years later,” said Coates.

"It emphasises what a superb athlete he was in one of the most fiercely competitive Olympic events.

“In retirement Peter made an enormous contribution in Victoria across a range of sports, he was always available to help with Olympic Team fundraising appeals and with Olympic education in our schools.”

Reigning Commonwealth Games 400m champion John Steffensen said Norman was his hero for his courageous stand in Mexico City.

Steffensen wore a shirt with a picture of the famous black power salute to a pre-games function in Melbourne.

The following day, Norman presented him with a photograph of the famous image signed by the three medallists.

A statue of the black power salute has been erected at San Jose State University, where Smith and Carlos were both students.

The Australian said last year at the unveiling he was unconcerned not to be included in the statue.

“I stepped in to lend my support, anyone can stand in and get a picture taken and be a part of the event,” he said.

" … I am honoured to be commemorated in part of the celebration."

Norman’s nephew Matthew has just completed a movie about his uncle’s involvement in the black power protest entitled Salute - The Peter Norman Story.

Interestingly, my old college coach at Stanford, Peyton Jordan, was the head coach of the US Olympic team in 1968. He has remained close to both Tommy Smith and John Carlos to this day and I believe John was at the celebration of Coach Jordan’s career held at Stanford about a year ago.
I first met Peter Norman at the Pan Pacific Games in Tokyo in 1969. He and another Aus sprinter, Greg Lewis, were real wild men! Funny as hell. They were made honerary “field men” by the Aussie throwers for sailing a rental boat over a reef and scuttling it in Port Morseby before the games.

TOMMIE SMITH & JOHN CARLOS PAY TRIBUTE TO THEIR FRIEND, THE LATE PETER NORMAN.

Australian sprinter Peter Norman dies
Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia - Peter Norman, the Australian sprinter who shared the medals podium with Tommie Smith and John Carlos while they gave their black power salutes at the 1968 Olympics, died Tuesday of a heart attack. He was 64.

Athletics Australia chief executive Danny Corcoran announced his death.

Norman won the silver medal in the 200 meters at the Mexico City Games. Smith set a world record in winning the gold medal and Carlos took the bronze, and their civil rights protest became a flash point of the Olympics.

Smith and Carlos stood shoeless, each wearing a black glove on his raised, clenched fist. They bowed their heads while the national anthem played.

“It wasn’t about black or white,” Carlos said Tuesday. “It was just about humanity, faith in God and faith in making it a better world.”

Norman, a physical education teacher, stood on the front podium during the ceremony. He wore a human rights badge on his shirt in support of the two Americans and their statement against racial discrimination in the United States.

“It was like a pebble into the middle of a pond, and the ripples are still traveling,” Norman said last year.

Smith, Carlos and Norman drew criticism and threats for their actions, gestures that came in the aftermath that year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

“I was happy to identify with (Smith) and the principles he believed in,” Norman was later quoted as saying.

Reached Tuesday at home in Georgia, the 62-year-old Smith said Norman’s stand was courageous and resonated long after Mexico City.

“It took inner power to do what he did, inner soul power,” Smith said. “It was a weight that is very heavy, and it is still heavy. … He was a man of solid beliefs, that’s how I will remember Peter - he was a humanitarian and a man of his word.”

Speaking from his high school counseling job in Palm Springs, Calif., the 61-year-old Carlos said Norman faced his own struggles upon returning to Australia after the Olympics.

“We had our cross to bear here in the United States,” Carlos said. “Peter had a bigger cross to bear because he didn’t have anyone there to help shield him other than his family. He had to go through agony and torment. He took it like a soldier.”

Corcoran said Norman remained heavily involved in sports. Last year, he was reunited with Smith and Carlos at San Jose State for the unveiling of a statue commemorating the 1968 protest.

“That was like God letting us have the roundup,” Carlos said. “We had such a family reunion.”

Corcoran said, “Whilst only Smith and Carlos were recognized in bronze, as alumni of the university, Peter was, as always, happy to have played his role.”

“Peter will be remembered not only for his success as an athlete and his humanitarian gesture in Mexico City, but also for his service to athletics and the community and for his warmth and friendship.”

Smith said he talked infrequently with Norman over the years, but they reconnected last year at Smith’s home in Los Angeles before the unveiling of the statue, playing music and joking and debating Norman’s insistence on being left off the statue.

“He believed in giving himself unto others - he would much rather remove himself and let others take his place,” Smith said. “I can understand now, since Peter’s gone, he left that vacancy so others could stand in his place, and that was quite awesome.”

Norman was a five-time national champion in the 200 and his time of 20.06 seconds in Mexico City still stands as the Australian record.

Carlos said he and Norman had stayed in touch by e-mail.

“His sincerity, his love for humanity, his kind thoughts - those are things that I will remember,” Carlos said. “He was a giving person.”

The world needs more people like Peter Norman.

I remember that he had a very hard time with the federation after 68 and he wasn’t selected for the 72 olympics when he should have been .

4 October 2006 | 5.42pm

Yesterday’s sudden passing of 1968 Olympic silver medallist Peter Norman has touched sports fans around the globe. Media outlets in all corners of the world, but particularly in America where organisations such as the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN have paid tribute to Peter’s life, his sporting endeavours and contribution to one of the most famous moments in Olympic history.

Peter was a friend to thousands in the athletics world and the IAAF reports that they have also received many inquires regarding Peter’s life and his athletic performances.

Paul Jenes, Athletics Australia’s statistician and world wide President of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians, was an active competitor in interclub athletics when Peter was in his prime and was less than 50m away from the famous medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico.

Paul has written this obituary to an athlete and friend who will be sorely missed.

OBITUARY

PETER NORMAN (15 Jun 1942 – 3 Oct 2006)

Peter Norman, one of Australia’s greatest ever male sprinters passed away after suffering a major heart attack. He is best remembered as the man standing quietly on the victory dais at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics as American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their now famous ‘Black Power’ salute protesting the racial inequalities in USA society towards African Americans.

Peter supported their protest by wearing a Human Rights badge during the victory ceremony which brought him censure from ‘the powers to be’ but nowhere suffering the consequences that Smith and Carlos had to endure. The Olympic 200 metres final was Peter’s greatest race as he split the Americans to win silver in 20.06 seconds, a National record that still stands today.

Peter first came to prominence as an athlete when he won the Victorian junior 220 yards title in 1960 in 22.2 seconds. Peter left his original club Collingwood Harriers and joined the East Melbourne Harriers where former quarter-miler Neville Sillitoe had gathered a formidable sprint group which was to dominate sprinting not only in Victoria but also Australia over the next decade or more.

In 1962 Peter was a semi-finalist in the 220 yards in the British Empire and Commonwealth Games, Perth in 22.03 seconds. However progress was slow after 1963 when injuries hampered his preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Disqualified in the heats of the National 220 yards ended any slim hopes he had for selection.

His determination and training with fellow sprint champions Gary Holdsworth and Greg Lewis saw him make the team for the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica after winning his first National title. Peter was a quarter-finalist in the 100 yards in 10.27 seconds and again semi-finalist in the 220 yards in 21.2 seconds. He anchored the sprint relay team to a bronze medal and also ran a leg of the 4x440 yards final when Gary Eddy was forced to withdraw. The team finished 5th.

Peter won his 3rd successive National 200 title in 1968 and was selected for the Mexico Olympics. He was in brilliant form and ran a personal best 10.3 seconds for the 100 metres and 20.3 seconds for the 200 metres in a pre-meet giving a glimpse of what was to come. He cruised through the heats and quarter-finals winning in 20.23 and 20.44 seconds. He was 2nd behind world record holder John Carlos in his semi-final in 20.22 seconds.

Running from lane 6 in the final Peter was 3rd off the turn but continued his drive to the tape passing Carlos to finish 2nd in 20.06 seconds behind Tommie Smith’s new world record of 19.83 seconds. Whilst the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico City helped to produce fast times the performance was extraordinary as Peter was not considered a finals prospect prior to the Games, and his result is still the best ever by an Australian male sprinter in the Olympics. His time would have won him gold in the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

The now famous victory ceremony has become immortalised with a 20 foot tall statue erected at San Jose State University where Smith and Carlos were students. It was unveiled in October 2005 with Peter in attendance. It also cemented a life long friendship for the three athletes who have had a number of reunions over the passing years.

In 1969 Peter ran in the inaugural Pacific Conference Games in Tokyo winning the 200 metres in 21.0 seconds and finished 4th in the 100 metres in 10.8 seconds. He was also a member of the winning sprint relay team.

Peter won his 5th consecutive National 200 metres title in 1970 and was selected for the 1970 Edinburgh British Empire and Commonwealth Games where he finished 5th in the 200 metres in 20.86 seconds.

He continued his career to 1972 hoping to make the Munich Olympic team but failed to gain selection after finishing 3rd in the Nationals in Perth. He then retired from top level athletics.

Peter was predominantly a 200 metres runner but did finish 2nd in the National 100 metres in 1969. He avoided the 400 metres as best he could, but loved doing other events on Saturday’s inter-clubs doing high jumps and javelins amongst other events. Peter also loved Australian Rules football and played in his younger days.

Peter was a PE teacher by profession and enjoyed amateur theatre, acting on stage in a number of plays. He was also a TV commentator for the Nine Network at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games. He was also involved in Sports Administration and was active in encouraging young athletes. In 2000 he was awarded the Australia Sports Medal for his contribution to sport. He helped with Olympic team fund raising and Olympic education in schools and was currently working for the Department of Sport and Recreation and was a member of the Salvation Army.

Peter was vocal in his views on Australian athletics, however those who witnessed his presentation to John Steffensen at the Melbourne Cricket Crowd this year, where Peter presented John with a signed photo of the famous victory ceremony after he had heard that John viewed Peter as a hero know that he touched and influenced many athletes over the past 40 years.

Peter had a great sense of humour, was great company and was a generous man who will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

Peter passed away at his home in Williamstown a month after bypass surgery. He is survived by his second wife Jan and their daughters Belinda and Emma, and his first wife Ruth and children Gary, Sandra and Janita.

Paul Jenes
Athletics Australia Statistician
President ATFS (Association of Track and Field Statisticians)

October 3:

If he hadn’t been born with swift legs, Peter Norman, who has died at the age of 64, would never have had the opportunity of doing his bit for American civil rights.
As a 26-year-old, Norman found himself on a three-man stage in Mexico City in 1968 with the eyes of the world on him.
He was on the victory dais after the 200 metres final, in which the Australian had won a surprise silver medal.
Beside him were Olympic champion Tommie Smith and his fellow black American John Carlos, who had won the bronze medal.
As the strains of The Star-Spangled Banner rang out over the stadium, the two Americans bowed their heads and raised gloved fists in protest at the treatment of blacks in the United States.
Norman did not join them in the Black Power salute which so outraged authorities in the US. But he was with them in spirit.
The young Australian knew what they were going to do and offered them his support. On the dais he wore a badge of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, and it was at his suggestion that they each wore one of Smith’s black gloves.
The image of the three of them on the dais is one of the most enduring and dramatic in Olympic history.
The world was a very different place in October 1968. Martin Luther King had been in his grave only six months and it was just a year since Australians had supported a referendum to give Aborigines the right to vote.
Norman admired the courage of the Americans, who knew they would be expelled from the team and sent home in disgrace.
They knew what would happen to them, yet they never deviated,'' Norman said later. To me, that made them martyrs.’’

Carlos also saw Norman as a hero.
To wear the badge as a white individual, it made the statement even more powerful,'' he said in an interview with the New York Times in 2000. Peter became my brother at that moment.’’

There is another side to the story which is not so well known.
Although he was a member of the Salvation Army, Norman was not above using a little gamesmanship to help him win the silver medal.
They were on the blocks and Carlos was very immersed in the start when a phone rang somewhere nearby,'' Australian Olympic historian Harry Gordon recalled today. Norman turned to Carlos and said: That’ll be for you, John. You’d better answer it.’’
The incident broke the American’s concentration and may have contributed to his finishing behind Norman, whom he had blown past in the semi-final.
Peter was a highly principled man,'' Gordon said. But he knew they were better sprinters than him, and he delighted in breaking their concentration.’’

HOME PAGE for a feature film about Peter Norman, Tommie Smith & John Carlos and THAT protest in the 1960s’ Era Of Protest.

‘SALUTE: The Peter Norman Story’ is a film by Matt Norman - Peter’s nephew - due for release in the US in February 2007.

The website has had 800,000 hits in the 24 hours since Norman died.

Matt says his uncle cried with pleasure on seeing the film. The old sook :slight_smile:

http://www.salutethemovie.com

Yes! That was Peter!

During the Robbie soccer tournament in Toronto recently, the Toronto-under- 18 boys were playing the Newfoundland-under-18 boys. The striker from the Toronto team objected to Newfoundland coach that his defender was far too aggressive.
Yes, the Newfoundland coach replied, he’s not playing fair, but ,
…well he just got out of jail!