ATHLETICS:This World Cup represents a sporting triumph for the entire African continent as well as highlighting their remarkable achievements on the track, writes IAN O'RIORDAN
WATCHING THE kaleidoscope of colour unfold in Soweto yesterday, the noisy and joyous patriot games, it was impossible not to sense the whole world was coming together for the first time under African skies. South Africa may be hosts, but this World Cup represents a sporting triumph for the entire continent. The Rainbow Nation is indeed at peace with itself and the world, and so, it seems, is all of Africa.
Over the next four weeks we’ll undoubtedly get plenty of reminders of all that is great and not so great about all things African, but now more than ever it feels like the once Dark Continent has truly stepped into the light. Yet Nelson Mandela’s absence from Soccer City after a family tragedy was a sad reminder that Africa itself has always juggled with triumph and tragedy, that any success on the continent, sporting or otherwise, has nearly always been measured against the backdrop of famine and civil war, exploitation and corruption.
But through sport more than any other medium Africa has been able to declare its unambiguous greatness – and in no sport has it been more unambiguously great than in athletics. Watching the World Cup kick-off in Soweto yesterday I couldn’t help realise that so much of what I know about Africa I know because of athletics, and the success not just of the East African distance runners, but of the West African sprinters, the North African milers, and more recently, the South African women.
It’s only 50 years ago that the first great African distance runner emerged from the continent, when Abebe Bikila, a member of the Ethiopian Imperial Bodyguard, ran barefoot through the streets of Rome to win the Olympic marathon – and in the process become the first black African to win Olympic gold. Somewhat fittingly, Bikila’s life was one of triumph and tragedy; he was later paralysed in a car accident, but what Bikila did in Rome and repeated in Tokyo four years later inspired a nation of distance runners, paving the way for a succession of Ethiopian greats such as Mamo Wolde and Murits Yifter, and all-time greats Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele.
What I know is that whatever the Ethiopians are capable of in distance running the Kenyans are too. The great Kenyans, like the great Ethiopians, were born high in the mountains, ran several miles to school, and when they come down from the Great Rift Valley are usually unbeatable. Kipchoge Keino, better known as Kip Keino, was Kenya’s pioneering force, winning four Olympic medals, none more impressively than gold in the 1,500 metres in Tokyo 1968 (he famously ran the last mile to the stadium when the team bus got stuck in traffic, and still ran an Olympic record of 3:34.90).
Kenyan distance runners have continued to do extraordinary things on the track ever since; Henry Rono breaking world records despite a drink problem; their steeplechasers clean-sweeping Olympic finals; and Paul Tergat breaking marathon barriers (only for Gebrselassie to break them again).
I know African-born runners hold all the world records for men from 800 metres right up to the marathon, but that two of these – the mile and 1,500 metres – belong to a North African, Hicham El Guerrouj from Morocco.
He is, in my mind, the greatest miler of all time, but El Guerrouj wasn’t the only great runner from North Africa. In 1968 a 29-year-old soldier from Tunisia, named Mohamed Gammoudi, won the Olympic 5,000 metres in Tokyo, and it was another Moroccan, Said Aouita, who become one of my first running idols. Aouita won Olympic gold over 5,000 metres too, in 1984, and held the 1,500 metres world record at 3:29.46 for seven years, before another North African distance runner, Noureddine Morceli of Algeria, ran 3:28.86.
Morceli also won three World Championship 1,500 metres – although his 1991 title in Tokyo was eclipsed by countrywoman Hassiba Boulmerka. She also won the Olympic title in 1992, when two other African women made another statement of extraordinary progress. In the women’s 10,000 metres, Elana Meyer, a white South African, found herself in a decisive battle with Derartu Tulu, a black Ethiopian. Tulu won, becoming the first black African woman to win Olympic gold, and Meyer took silver, South Africa’s first Olympic medal since being banned after the 1960 Olympics. Their victory lap together, arm in arm, thus became an early symbol of the new united Africa.
Maria de Lurdes Mutola became a national symbol for Mozambique when in her fourth Olympics, in Sydney 2000, she finally won her nation’s first gold medal in the 800 metres. Mutola was an exceptionally powerful athlete, and proved that African women didn’t have to be skinny and lean to be great runners.
I know Africans can sprint too because for years Frankie Fredericks from Namibia was among the best sprinters in the world. Fredericks won four Olympic sprint medals, albeit all silver, and in 1992 was narrowly beaten in the 100 metres by Britain’s Linford Christie – still becoming the first black African to medal in the event. West Africans, especially Nigeria, have a proud tradition of sprinters too such as David Ezinwa, who made successive Olympic 100-metre finals in 1992 and 1996.
The first black South African to win an Olympic gold medal was Josia Thugwane, who won the marathon in Atlanta in 1996. I know that because he was lucky to even make the start line having been carjacked, and shot in the chin, just five months before. After Thugwane won his gold medal he was hounded by beggars and thieves and I know that’s what happens to a lot of successful people in South Africa.
No black South African woman has ever won an Olympic gold medal in athletics. I know that because it’s one of the reasons why Castor Semenya and the South African federation are so determined to bring closure to the gender dispute that has inexplicably dragged on since the World Championships in Berlin last August where she was as good as unbeatable over 800 metres in Berlin.
