46th annual Louis Twanima Footrace held Sept. 3 on Second Mesa

The 46th annual Louis Tewanima Footrace was held Sept. 6 in the village of Shungopavi, Second Mesa, on the Hopi Reservation. (Photos/Jasper Howe)

The 46th annual Louis Tewanima Footrace was held Sept. 6 in the village of Shungopavi, Second Mesa, on the Hopi Reservation. (Photos/Jasper Howe)

The 46th annual Louis Tewanima Footrace was held Sept. 6 in the village of Shungopavi, Second Mesa, on the Hopi Reservation.

The footrace is sponsored by the Lewis Tewanima Memorial Footrace Association. Hopis encourage participants along the route and from the tops of mesas, with shouts of Nahongvita “stay strong.” The race is named for Lewis Tewanima. Twanima was the only Hopi to ever represent the United States in the International Olympic Games. He participated in the 1908 Games in London and again in 1912 when they were held in Stockholm, Sweden, where he won a silver medal in the 10,000-meter race. That record remained until it was broken in the 1964 Games in Tokyo by Billy Mills, a Sioux from Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

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