Satish Sekar

Sport unites but opinions divide. There are many great Olympians – there have to be. Zambia is a very interesting case study. The last time Tokyo hosted the Olympic Games was in 1964 and Zambia is a special case and not because I happen to be here again. When the Olympic Games last graced Japan, Northern Rhodesia marched at the Opening Ceremony, but the days of white supremacy in the land of Mosi oa Tunya (‘The Smoke which Thunders,’ as the Victoria Falls should be known,) were numbered.

Samuel Matete is without doubt the best athlete that Zambia has ever produced. He benefited from state-of-the-art facilities after leaving Zambia for the USA. Matete is back in Zambia. He wants to develop Zambian athletes and help to produce his successor as Zambia’s best. Matete’s Olympic time was not his best and is now the equal 188th fastest in the event, but that was inevitable as athletes get better facilities and technology improves – tracks are designed to produce faster times. Tokyo’s second Olympic Games had such a track.

Ponga Liwewe, son of Zambia’s greatest commentator, Dennis, is a distinguished football journalist and administrator in his own right. Ponga did not choose footballers as his greatest Olympian, Zambian or international. Zambia’s greatest athlete Samuel Matete was his greatest Zambian Olympian and his choice as greatest ever is Jamaican athletics icon Usain Bolt, undoubtedly one of the sport’s greats.

Sixty years earlier Jesse Owens overcame horrific racism home and abroad to enter Olympic history. His talent and achievements made a mockery of the Third Reich’s claim to be the Master-Race, but he and his black teammates (18 of them) faced appalling racism in the USA too. President Franklin Roosevelt refused to congratulate Owens or other black medal winners despite their great sporting displays, and they discriminated against American Jewish athletes too.