Page "Jim Thorpe" Paragraph 26

After his victories at the Olympic Games in Sweden, on September 2, 1912, he returned to Celtic Park, the home of the Irish American Athletic Club, in Queens, New York ( where he had qualified four months earlier for the Olympic Games ), to compete in the Amateur Athletic Union's All-Around Championship.

Competing against Bruno Brodd of the Irish American Athletic Club and J. Bredemus of Princeton University, he won seven of the ten events contested and came in second in the remaining three.

With a total point score of 7, 476 points, Thorpe broke the previous record of 7, 385 points set in 1909, ( also set at Celtic Park ), by Martin Sheridan, the champion athlete of the Irish American Athletic Club.

Sheridan, a five-time Olympic gold medalist, was present to watch his record broken, approached Thorpe after the event and shook his hand saying, " Jim, my boy, you're a great man.

I never expect to look upon a finer athlete.

" He told a reporter from The New York World, " Thorpe is the greatest athlete that ever lived.

He has me beaten fifty ways.

Even when I was in my prime, I could not do what he did today.