Melbourne | October 9

AP - Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who gave the historic black power salutes at the 1968 Olympics, have reunited for the final time with the third man on the podium that year.

Smith and Carlos attended the funeral Monday of Peter Norman, the Australian sprinter who died last week of a heart attack at the age of 64.

The two Americans acted as pallbearers at the funeral attended by about 800 people at a town hall at Williamstown, a Melbourne suburb.

Norman won the silver medal in the 200 metres at the Mexico City Games, his time of 20.06 seconds still a national record. Smith set a world record in winning the gold and Carlos took the bronze, and their civil rights protest became a flash point of the Olympics.

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Smith and Carlos stood shoeless, each wearing a black glove on his raised, clenched fist. They bowed their heads while the U.S. anthem played.

Norman, a physical education teacher, stood on the front podium during the Olympic ceremony. He wore a human rights badge on his shirt in support of the two Americans and their statement against racial discrimination in the United States.

"Peter never flinched, he never turned his eye or his head," Carlos said Monday at the funeral. "When I looked into his eyes I saw nothing but love."

"He was a lone soldier in Australia. Many people in Australia didn't particularly understand. Why would that young white fellow go over and stand with those black individuals?"

A statue commemorating the protest was erected last year at San Jose State University in California, where Smith and Carlos were both students.

Norman supported the decision to have his position on the statue left vacant.

"He said `I was merely a rock cast into deep still waters'. The ripples from that tiny rock I pray will flow to the shores . . . of love so that everybody will know the humanitarian acts that we will all accept some day," Smith said.