Sport

Kenya won four gold medals – the best by an African nation in the 32nd Olympic Games – but all four were on the track. In total, four silver and two bronzeThey were 19th best at the Olympic Games with ten medals However, despite a track designed to produce fast times, no world records were set by Africans. Both 400m Hurdles (Men and Women) produced World Records. All medallists in the Men’s event broke the previous World Record and Olympic. The latter set by the USA’s Kevin Young had lasted almost 30 years. The winner, Norway’s Karsten Warholm became the first man to break the 46 seconds barrier. No African athlete made the final, let alone won a medal.

The recently concluded 32nd Summer Olympiad in Tokyo was very poor from Africa’s standpoint. The biggest problems, training facilities and opportunities are bad enough, but there are other issues too. Grassroots and school sport has been neglected for years. It is reflected in performance. Training facilities is just part of it. Competition and access to tracks are another. Without both facilities and competition talent cannot be nurtured and developed to a standard where they can compete at the highest level.

Sixty years before the Centennial Games of 1996 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.

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 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.