Just a few weeks before the start of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the American former athlete Tommie Smith was in the French capital and inter alia recounting how he and fellow sprinters John Carlos and Peter Norman essentially winged their way into what would become one of the most enduring and powerful images in Olympic history. "I went to Mexico City to win the race, not to necessarily make a statement," said the 80-year-old who claimed the 200 metres dash in October 1968 in a world record tim