1968 Olympic 200m: Tommie Smith, Peter Norman, John Carlos

Last Updated on November 18, 2011 by Jimson Lee

I’m really looking forward to meeting Tommie Smith as he will be in Seattle on February 8-10.

I guess my biggest question is why he waited 38 years to tell the world that his actions at the 1968 Olympic 200 Meters medal ceremony meant “Silent Gesture” and not “Black Power” as the media portrayed it?

You have to love YouTube. Someone, obviously a Peter Norman fan, who died on Oct 3, 2006, posted all of his rounds on YouTube. Instead of going back and fourth and searching for the videos, here are all the races in one fell swoop.

If you read Tommie’s book, he describes how he got injured in the semi-final, ran the first half conservatively and “had only 15 good pushes on the straightaway”. Those Tommie Jets are clearly shown here as he blows by John Carlos.

With today’s harder tracks, if Tommie wasn’t injured, and if he ran through the line, how fast could he have run? 19.32?


1968 Olympic 200m Heat 6 (Peter running 20.17 setting an Olympic record)


1968 Olympic 200m Second Round (2 races – John Carlos and Peter Norman)


1968 Olympic 200m Semi-Final 1 (John Carlos and Peter Norman in the same race)


1968 Olympic 200m Semi Final 2 (Tommie Smith, who gets injured in this race as seen by clutching his leg afterwards)


1968 Olympic 200m Final


1968 Olympic 200m Final (in colour)