Africa ends the Olympics strongly, but...

Kenya led a clean African sweep of the Men's Marathon on the last day of the Beijing Olympics. Sammy Wanjiru won Kenya's first ever Marathon by setting an Olympic record. Jaouad Gharib of Morocco came second and Tsegay Kebede of Ethiopia took bronze. Kenya tops the African medals table with five gold followed by Ethiopia with four.  Africa's total haul of 'only' 39 medals, including 12 gold, shows that we are still a long way from the top sporting nations of the world.

I see one main reason for this: African countries compete in far too few events. Of the 12 gold medals we got, 9 were obtained by Kenya and Ethiopia in typically traditional African events of long distance running. The two countries carried did well but they are not good in any event other than long distance running. Kenyans, Ethiopians and east Africans are naturally gifted in long distance events. Their good performance is not the result of any conscious 'growing' of top athletes or a sporting organizational system that produces great results. Not that there is anything wrong with that. All countries have their 'specialities' but it seems Africans have too few.

The three other gold medals Africa won came from swimming (a Tunisian man won the 1500 meters and Coventry Kirsty, a white Zimbabwe lady won gold in the 200 meters backstroke and three silver in other swimming events ) and the Cameroonian lady, François Etone, who won the triple jump event, defending her gold from Athens. These are very remarkable performances since they come in events in which Africans have no 'natural' advantage over other countries. But like all such things African, these are rare exceptions rather than the rule. Africans, as a rule, never do well in a swimming event unless they are white from South Africa or Zimbabwe or Arab. No black person swims well, not even in Europe and the US.

Sometimes a country will be lucky to have one good athlete who is responsible for several medals. Coventry Kirsty was single-handedly responsible for all of her troubled country’s medals that gave a respectable 38th place in the medals table – far above big nations like India, Pakistan or South Africa. Ghana did not have such luck.

Genetic differences

Black persons are the best runners in the world. The best long distance runners are blacks from eastern Africa and the fastest persons in the world are either black persons from West Africa or their slave descendants in the US or the Caribbean. The blacks in the US and the Caribbean are not good in long distance running. The slaves transported from Africa to the new world were mostly from the western parts of Africa and not from the east. The long distance genes were not carried over. It is a pity that if West Africa is the genetic home of sprinters, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal or Cote d’Ivoire have not produced the sprint kings and queens of the games. It seems, raw talent has to be carefully nurtured to produce top results. The blacks in the US have more facilities than those in Africa. Even many sprint stars from West Africa have had to go to the US to be even better. But what about the unique case of Jamaica and small island states like Trinidad and Tobago and Bahamas? Can it be because they are nearer the US and can quickly move over to improve? I won't pretend to know the answer to that.

But the fact still remains that Africa will not get many medals in many Olympics to come because we will not be taking part in several events. Tell me when there will be African representatives in events whose names sound like these: Artistic and rhythmic gymnastics (several medals here in group and individual events), Baseball, Softball (thank goodness, it’s gone out of the Olympic programme), Equestrian events (know what dressage is?), Rowing, Sailing, Shooting (many events with strange names), Synchronized Swimming, or Trampolining? Not for a long time. It is likely that an African, born in Europe or the US of mixed parentage and raised there, will be good in any of these events and will decide the carry the flag of his African home country. That was what put Togo on the medals’ table with one bronze won by Boukpeti Benjamin in the canoe/kayak slalom – an event which his countrymen had never even heard of before.  Benjamin’s mother is French and he was born and bred in that country where he practices his sport. They said he is the first non-European to have ever won a medal in that event. But is he really a non-European? Such cases will be rare and will involve only individual events.

Africa will not take part in these events because they are technical and, in many cases, costly. Africans are simply not good in the technical events, in fact, in anything technical. Running requires little technique and even in that case, the Africans with the natural talents have to go to Europe or the US to improve on their techniques. If Africans are good in the ‘natural’ events, then why are we not good in walking since no event can be more 'natural' than walking and who in the world walks as part of his daily life's activities more than Africans? But the kind of walking we see in competitive sports has a large dose of technicality in it. So Africans are bad at it, naturally.

And Ghana?

As for Ghana's performances, the less said about it the better. Our only hope seemed to have been Vida Anim and we would have been proud even if she had made it to the 100m and 200m finals and come last in each. It would have been an achievement. As it is, she finished last in one of the 100 meters semi-finals and refused to run the 200m because of lack of financial support from her nation. Boxing has been our traditional powerhouse but we didn't do well there either. The thing most Ghanaians will remember is the fact that 13 officials accompanied 9 athletes, none of whom got any far.  

And the Swedes?

They had one of their worst performances so far in ‘OS sammanghang’. They did exceptionally well in the Athens Olympics four years ago. It seems fate put all their luck into those games. This time around, they ended with ‘only’ four silver medals and one bronze even though they sent more than 80 sportsmen and women. Their medal hopes disappointed them when it came to the ‘kritan’. Stefan Holme couldn’t repeat his magic from Athens where he got gold in his very last jump. The much touted Sussana Kallur crashed out at the very first hurdle in the semi-finals of the 100 metres hurdles and left the stadium in tears. Mustafa led the steeplechase for two laps but that was just so he could be in the limelight for some time. He finished 10th. As for Carolina Kluft, she is, indeed, a great sportswoman and should have stuck to the heptathlon. Now she has only shown that even though she is world best in an arbitrary mixture of events, she not the best in any one of them – a truly jack of all trades but master of none. Poor her – a very likeable person though she is.

Well, China topped the medals table for the first time winning far more gold than the USA. But there is something to be said about all of China’s medals. It is still the only big country that gives so much state support to its athletes in the manner of the Soviet Union and its satellites. China reserves sophisticated state sponsored facilities for its elite athletes and leaves the rest of its citizens to fend for themselves. Chinese state officials still identify youngsters at early ages to groom them into elite performers. Yao Ming's parents, both tall basketball players of their day, were introduced to each other to get married so they can produce a tall basketball player – Yao Ming! A similar investment in Chinese citizens to perform well in Track and Field (Athletics, arguably what the Olympics is all really about) has not produced similar results. The injury of China’s biggest track star, Liu Xiang, in the 110 meters hurdle was a big blow. Chinese people can't run fast or jump high unless it is on the trampoline.

There is no such state sponsorship in India which, this year, won its first individual Olympic gold medal in a shooting event – Men’s 10m Air Rifle. The winner was given a state welcome on arrival home.  Sports are a private investment endeavour in India, like it is in the US. Were Chinese sports to go the way of Indian or US sports, they would never have won so many medals. And were African sports to go a bit of the way Chinese sports go, Africa would have certainly won more medals than we did. But in Africa, we have greater concerns than using sports to show how mighty we are. It is far better we concentrate on getting basic amenities to all our citizens than specifically grooming them to win medals.  That is why I am not crying too much Ghana we didn’t win any medals.

Kofi Sapathy