From John Akii-Bua to Cheptegei

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✳ Cheptegei
◉ Olympic gold
◉ World records
◉ World Champ
◉ Commonwealth gold
◉ World cross country champ
✳ Akii Bua
◉ Olympic gold
◉ World record
✳ Kiprotich
◉ Olympic gold
◉ World champ
✳ Chemutai
◉ Olympic gold

Tokyo, Japan | THE INDEPENDENT | Before Joshua Cheptegei stepped onto the track for the Olympics 5000m final on Friday, he already had more international honors in any sport than any other Ugandan ever.

The 24-year-old Ugandan ace had been world junior athletics champion, world cross country champion, held four world records on the track and off it, and was Commonwealth and world athletics champion.

The place he already deserved in Ugandan sports history was being blurred by the absence of the most important medal – Olympics gold. Even more doubts were raised after he settled for silver in the 10,000m race in Tokyo, one of two track races at which he holds a world record.

Cheptegei silenced the lingering debate about his place in Uganda sports history Friday, by taking charge of the 5,000m final, and snatching a much cherished Olympics gold medal.

In doing so, he joined a list of only four Ugandans who have got Olympic Glory. Others are Peruth Chemutai, first woman a week earlier, Stephen Kiprotich in 2012 and the great John Akii-Bua in 1972.

Together with Kiprotich, they are the only Ugandans to have been Olympic and World Champion. The other previous world champion was Dorcus Inzikuru.

Comparisons had for long been made with Akii-Bua as they are the only two Ugandans who have ever held world records.

Dance of a champ! Congratulations @joshuacheptege1 @Olympics #Tokyo2020 #Olympics pic.twitter.com/Gho1psy4n7

— aisha nassanga (@AishaSports) August 6, 2021

Cheptegei’s gold

World record holder Cheptegei took the gold in the gruelling men’s 5000m final at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, finishing ahead of Mohammed Ahmed of Canada, who took the silver, and Paul Chelimo of the United States who scooped the bronze.

Cheptegei, with a time of 12 minutes, 58.15, became the first Ugandan to win the event as he bagged the Olympic gold that has eluded him for so long.

“It’s really a great moment,” the Ugandan hero said after the race. “I made a small mistake and I was regretting [having] to become a silver medallist. I came here to become an Olympic champion and my dream has been fulfilled today in a beautiful evening.”

“I knew a lot of guys were strong so I had to take them through the lap and whoever was the strongest in the mind [would win],” the Olympic champions and 5000m world record holder added. “I knew I was strong in the mind because I broke a couple of world records.”

Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda was in front of the pack early, but his countryman Cheptegei took over the front spot midway through the race and didn’t let go of it until a six-man pack pushed ahead of the rest to set-up the final push. Cheptegei sealed the gold with a ferocious charge over the last section, with Ahmed nipping second.

Uganda’s John Akii-Bua

On September 2 1972, Akii-Bua did something no other man had done before. In the Olympic Stadium in Munich, Akii-Bua was drawn in Lane One for the 400m hurdles. At 4.31pm local time, he won the gold medal in an astonishing new world record time of 47.82 seconds.

The 23-year-old Akii Bua’s 47.82 in that Munich Olympics final in Germany to take a phenomenal 0.3 seconds off the world record set by the then greatest hurdler David Hemery four years earlier. More remarkable, was he run that final from the inside lane – considered the least favorite position in the one lap race.

He was the first man to run the high hurdles under 48 seconds;  first African to win gold in an event under 800m, and of course Uganda’s first Olympic gold winner.!

In winning, Akii  became the first East African athlete ever to set a world record either in the Olympics or in any other international athletics meet and the second African to do so after Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia at the 1964 Tokyo Games. Bikila won the Tokyo Marathon in 2 hours 12 minutes.

In London 2012, Stephen Kiprotich was also an outsider going into the last event of the Olympics, the marathon.

After toying with favourites from Kenya and Ethiopia,  Kiprotich raced to the front with six kms remaining to win the men’s Olympic marathon in two hours eight minutes 11 seconds.

Kiprotich, like Cheptegei, was World and Olympic Champion, after following his London Olympic gold with another gold at the World champs in Russia.

VIDEO: Akii Bua

UGANDA history at the Olympics

MEDALS BY GAMES

SOURCE: wikipedia