“I would do it again”: George Foreman flies the American flag after his heavyweight victory at the 1968 Mexico Games.
Picture: Getty
1968 in Mexico City, when Smith and Carlos raised their fists, Olympic champion George Foreman strutted the ring with Stars and Stripes. Today he has a close friendship with Donald Trump.
Dhe worldwide demonstrations of the “68ers” also stopped before the games of the XIX. Olympiad does not start. The week-long student riots in Mexico City ended in a bloodbath on October 2, 1968, ten days before the opening. How perfidious: With a massacre, the specially created elite unit “Batallón Olimpico” ensured Olympic peace. Hundreds of people died in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco district. An exact number of those killed has not yet existed. In times of turmoil, IOC President Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee, relied on the government’s word: “We have received assurances that nothing will disturb the competitions.” Obviously, he was not interested in how security was created . The main thing: The games can start.
The protests of the “68 movement” against the war in Vietnam, against racism after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther Kings on April 4, 1968 and against all the other injustices in the world were not left out. The rebellion rose silently, in black socks, with her head down and her fist stretched out to the sky in black gloves, also onto the medal podium at the Estadio Olimpico. American gold and bronze medalists, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, demonstrated “Black Power” during the award ceremony for the 200-meter race, with the anthem and hoisting the flags. The black sprinters committed themselves to the radical form of the otherwise peaceful civil rights movement. Smith and Carlos were kicked out of the team and the village. They had to leave the country within 48 hours.
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