"Almost a century after Jim Thorpe demonstrated in the Stockholm Olympics of 1912 that he was the greatest all-round athlete of all time, his family are striving to have him buried in the family plot in Oklahoma.

It's a strange tale. When he died in 1953, his wife sold the burial rights to a small coal town in Pennsylvania which was known as Mauch Chunk, where the citizens renamed their town as 'Jim Thorpe' in a bid to inspire an influx of tourists.

Thorpe, a member of the Red Indian tribe of the Sac and Fox was a son of a "part Irishman" and a mother from the Potawatomie and Kickapoo tribe.

One of his five sons, now 73 and a former chief of the Sac and Fox, is intent on reburying his father in a grave just a mile from where Jim Thorpe was born.

But if this burial saga is a strange tale, his sporting life was even stranger, as this innocent, shy Indian, proved a hero and then ran foul of Olympic bureaucracy."

Get the Story:
Sean Diffley: Olympic hero Thorpe victim of prolonged begrudgery (The Irish Independent 8/7)

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Jim Thorpe's son hopes for friendly resolution of repatriation case (7/26)
Opinion: Town will go on if Thorpe's remains reburied in Oklahoma (7/19)
Jim Thorpe's son sues to have remains returned to Oklahoma (6/25)
Commentary: A good case for returning Thorpe to Oklahoma (5/24)