Rio Olympics 2016: 5 instances when the Olympics became a medium for social change

2) Tommie Smith and John Carlos Black power salute in 1968

Tommie Smith and John Carlos celebrating their victory before making a political statement on the podium

One of the most powerful political statements in the Olympics was witnessed on 16 October, 1968. Egged by African American Sociologist Harry Edwards, who had asked the black Americans to boycott the games, Tommie Smith and John Carlos went one step further when they made a statement on the podium to attract attention to the plight of Blacks in the United States.

Tommie Smith won the 200 metre race with a world-record time of 19.83 seconds while John Carlos secured third place. The moment that remains etched in the annals of history of Olympics as well as Civil Rights movement came when they came to recieve their medals shoeless wearing black socks to bring attention to the poverty of their people.

The two black athletes then, in a show of solidarity with their community back home, raised a black-gloved fist as the American national anthem played.Carlos also wore a necklace of beads which he described "were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for”. The pair faced backlash on their return to United States but by then they had given the Olympics one of the most enduring as well as politically powerful images.