Arguably the most political statement in the 110-year history of the modern Olympic Games was made by the American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City on the evening of October 17, 1968. The 200m had been one of the races of the Games. Smith won in a world record time of 19.83sec, followed by Australia’s Peter Norman in 20.06sec, with Carlos third in 20.1sec. While the image of the two Americans became world famous, the gesture of solidarity by Norman — who died last week from a heart attack, aged 64 — was less remarked on, although it had similar negative consequences for him as it did for his fellow medallists. Smith and Carlos, however, repaid the favour, being quick to pay tribute to the man who had supported their protest against the treatment of black people in the US.

The Americans received their medals shoeless — to represent black poverty — but wearing black socks. All three athletes wore civil rights badges; Smith wore a black scarf around his neck and Carlos a string of beads to commemorate black people who had been lynched. When The Star-Spangled Banner struck up, they delivered the gesture that became front-page news around the world. With their heads bowed, Smith and Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist to represent Black Power.

The ramifications were immediate. The International Olympic Committee demanded that Smith and Carlos be suspended. The US Olympic Committee refused. It was then told that the US team would be banned, a threat which led to the two sprinters leaving the Olympic Village.

1 Tommie Smith In the aftermath of their dramatic gestures, Smith explained why he and Carlos had taken such a stand. “If I win, I am an American, not a black American,” he said. “But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.” After Mexico, Smith mixed sport with the promotion of his beliefs in equal rights. But life was never easy. Many in America could not comprehend the protest, and his family suffered. “It was as though everyone hated me,” he said, recalling the day a rock was thrown through a window of his house. With athletics an amateur sport, he spent three seasons playing American football with the Cincinnati Bengals before becoming an assistant professor of physical education at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1995 he was on the coaching staff of the US team at the world indoor championships in Barcelona, further recognition arriving in 1999 with a Sportsman of the Millennium award. Smith, now 62, is a public speaker. Last year he and Carlos were honoured for their stance in Mexico. They had been students at San Jose University in the 1960s, and the college erected a 20ft statue of their protest.

2 Peter Norman The 26-year-old Australian PE teacher was responsible for the lopsided look of the podium protest. Carlos had forgotten his black gloves, and he and Smith were unsure what to do until Norman stepped in to suggest that they share Smith’s pair, one taking the right glove, the other the left.

Norman played down the negative impact of the protest on his life compared with that of the Americans, but he too was reprimanded by his country’s Olympic authorities and, on his return from Mexico, ostracised by its media. He was not picked for the Australian team for the 1972 Games, despite finishing third in trials, something he attributed to the continuing disquiet over the protest. He nevertheless kept running, although in 1985 he contracted gangrene and almost had his leg amputated after tearing his Achilles tendon. A period of depression and heavy drinking followed.

Smith and Carlos kept in contact and will act as pallbearers at his funeral tomorrow.

3 John Carlos Born on June 5, 1945, in Harlem, the son of a shopkeeper, Carlos had been with Martin Luther King Jr, America’s black civil rights leader, 10 days before he was assassinated in April 1968. King provided him with his inspiration, telling him how he had no fear. But after the Mexico City Olympics, Carlos’s life was never the same again, even though the next summer was the best of his career on the track. He ran 9.1sec to equal the 100-yard world record and won a succession of individual track titles when he helped San Jose State to its first national title. But away from the track, his life was marked by hardship and ultimately tragedy. Like Smith, he moved to the National Football League when his track career was over, but after a year with the Philadelphia Eagles and a spell in the Canadian league, a knee injury ended his playing days prematurely.

Carlos had four children and took on whatever job he could do to make ends meet. He worked as a caretaker, in security and as a gardener. There was even a time when he had to chop up the furniture in his house to use for firewood. In 1977 his wife committed suicide. He talked of how financial stress could have been one of the reasons for her despair. Eight years later, he was back in sport, working as a track and field coach at a school in Palm Springs, California, where he is still a counsellor and suspension supervisor.