PETER NORMAN was a sympathetic bystander to one of the most controversial moments in Olympic history.

The Australian sprinter unexpectedly finished second in the 200 metres at the 1968 Games in Mexico and was standing on the podium when Tommie Smith, the winner, and John Carlos, in third place, staged their Black Power demonstration. The Americans stood barefoot, raised their black-gloved fists and bowed their heads to symbolise the oppression to which black people were subjected in the United States.

Norman was supportive of their stance. He was wearing a human rights badge on his tracksuit and publicly endorsed their campaign. He said last year of the incident: “It was like a pebble in the middle of the pond and the ripples are still travelling.”

The Australian was reprimanded and believed that he was excluded from the 1972 Games because of his backing of the two black athletes. Smith and Carlos were expelled from the 1968 Olympics and vilified in the US. Their marriages broke up, and they found it impossible to get anything but menial jobs. Norman said later: “Those two guys sacrificed their lives for a cause they believed in.”

That race marked the pinnacle of Norman’s career, not only because of his support for the civil rights movement but also in athletic terms. Norman’s time of 20.06 seconds is still the record for the distance by anyone from Oceania.

There had been little to indicate in his early career that he was capable of such a time. Although he had won the first three of his five successive Australian 200 metres titles by 1968, his best international performance had been a bronze in the 4 x 100 metres relay at the 1966 Commonwealth Games.

He prepared carefully for Mexico while working as a physical education teacher and also for the Salvation Army. Although he had never beaten 20.50 seconds for the 200 metres before the Games, he did 20.20 seconds in one heat to set an Olympic record. In the final, Carlos was perhaps concentrating on Smith and allowed the Australian to snatch the silver.

Told of the plan to use the Olympic podium for a demonstration, it was Norman’s idea that the pair should each wear one of the pair of black gloves owned by Smith. He then borrowed a human rights badge from an American oarsman.

In an interview in 2000, Norman said: “To wear a badge as a white individual, it made the statement even more powerful. To be involved in a very small way in history like that, it lives with you forever. It’s a bond.”

Norman’s athletics career then petered out and he finished fifth in the 1970 Commonwealth 200 metres final. He later worked for the Victoria state government in its events department.

In 2005 he was reunited with Smith and Carlos, when he attended the unveiling of a statue, commemorating the demonstration, at San José State University, where the two Americans had been students.

Peter Norman, Australian athlete, was born on June 15, 1942. He died of a heart attack on October 3, 2006, aged 64.