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John Akii-Bua (December 3, 1949 – June 20, 1997) was a Ugandan hurdler and the first Olympic champion from Uganda. At the Munich Olympics of 1972, Ugandan John Akii-Bua powered round the inside lane in the 400m hurdles to win the gold medal, 10m clear of the field. The clock showed 47.82, an astonishing new world record.
Akii-Bua was the first African to win gold in an event under 800 metres. He was also the first man to break the 48 seconds barrier in the 400 metre hurdles, an event so gruelling its nickname is 'The Mankiller'.
John Akii-Bua, is recognized as inventing the victory lap. After winning gold at the 1972 Olympics in the 400m hurdles he was so overwhelmed with joy that when a spectator handed him a Ugandan flag, he ran around the track waving the flag, the first ever victory lap - beginning the victor's 'lap of honour' tradition.
John was not oblivious of this moment. Probably had no idea it would pick on and become a tradition. He wrote in one of his notebooks: "When I finished my victory and demonstration jog, I met the coach Arnold, his sight exalted my excitement and made me collapse and I briefly wept."
Of the medal ceremony, John recorded in one of his notebooks: "The Ugandan national anthem played as I stood to attention with the whole stadium in respect to this small nation......."
The win was a defining and life changing achievement for Akii-Bua, but it was to be his only Olympics and the pinnacle of his athletic career.
Akii-bua was one of the 43 children sired by his father, a prominent chief from the Lango tribe of northern Uganda who had eight wives. He had a comfortable upbringing, but no one could have expected him to reach international stardom in track and field competition.
At 16, after an education ended young when his father died, Akii-Bua went to the capital, Kampala, searching for adventure. Great Britain, Uganda's colonial rulers, had sowed the seeds of future conflict by favouring the Langi and Acholi tribes over others including Amin's benighted Kakwa, but they had introduced a tradition of sport too, organised within the police, army and prison service. In Kampala, the police force took John on after a 30-minute football trial, which he played barefoot.
In 1972, after only one international competition, Akii-Bua arrived at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. His opposition in the 400-meter hurdles included Dave Hemery of Britain, the world record-holder and defending Olympic champion, and Ralph Mann, an American. His only pair of running shoes was two years old, and one shoe was missing a spike.
But he was built ideally (6 feet 2 inches and 170 pounds), and he had trained with frightening intensity. In the six months before the Olympics, his training had included wearing a vest weighted with 25 pounds in lead as he ran 1,500 meters over five hurdles that were 42 inches high -- the hurdles for his race were 36 inches. He did four sets of those repetitions, twice a day, every day.
After winning gold at the olympics, Akii-Bua's life would never be the same. Akii-Bua returned home as a hero, and to this day he remains the only Ugandan to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field. But his nation, under the dictatorship of Gen. Idi Amin, was torn by tribal factions and financial crises. Amin was purging the Lango tribe, and Akii-Bua was a Lango.
The Ugandan government, while celebrating his achievement, soon restricted his movements. It eventually barred him from taking his wife and children with him to international competitions, afraid he would defect. It cut off twice-a-year training trips to Germany. It reached a point, Akii-Bua said, where he had to stay home and do nothing except listen to Diana Ross records.
Akii-Bua did not defect. He said in 1978: "If I had not won that gold medal, perhaps I could leave Uganda. But I won the highest honor in track for my country, so I couldn't leave it. Uganda was, in effect, a prison. I guess Amin wanted to put me in jail several times, but I guess he didn't do it because I was too prominent a person."
In 1979, when Tanzanian forces invaded Uganda to fight Amin, Akii-Bua fled with his pregnant wife, Joyce, and three children. They made it across the Kenyan border but there, Akii-Bua recorded in one of his notebooks, their baby was born prematurely and died. The Olympic champion was destitute, and had no money to bury the child. In news coverage, Akii-Bua was filmed in a refugee camp, telling reporters: "I am a runner. I cannot tell you how bad it is here."
The footage was seen around the world, and Puma, which had sponsored John's spikes in Munich, gave him a soft job in the marketing department in West Germany. He grew stale, however, felt he had to go back to Uganda, but never competed meaningfully again.
He returned to Kampala to check on his family and home. He learned that five brothers and a sister had been killed . He found his house destroyed by bombs. It had been looted. His Olympic gold medal was gone.
He could not defend his Olympic title in 1976 because black African nations boycotted the Montreal Olympics.
Because he had little time to sharpen his speed, he did not fare well in the 1980 Moscow Olympics either and was eliminated in the semifinals. Under a new democratic government, he returned to Uganda in 1983 and became the national coach.
When he died in 1997, aged just 51, he was a widower with 11 children. He was given a state funeral.
Akii Bua is today part of Uganda’s Primary Schools Syllabus. They teach where he was born, his struggles, and his athletic triumphs. There are streets and a stadium named after him befitting a man who delivered Uganda’s only track gold.
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