John Charles Akii-Bua: Africa’s Olympic gold hurdler
Born on December 3, 1949, in the village of Abako Sub-County in Moroto County in Uganda’s Lango District, John Charles Akii-Bua (occasionally misspelled as Aki-Bua, Aki-Buwa, or Akii-Buwa) left school early, at age 15. , with primary education. His early dropout from school had to do in part with the death of his father and the fact that he had to help with the family job in which he herded cattle and also worked in a local family owned retail store. As a child, Akii was not significantly competitive in athletics. His informal athletic training came from the rigors of herding and protecting livestock from wild animals. In an interview in “Sports Illustrated” shortly after winning the Olympic gold medal, Akii proudly commented that the lions were particularly tired of his presence when he was there and did not chase the animals he herded.
When Akii joined the police force in the capital city, Kampala, while still a teenager, he again benefited athletically from rigorous police drills. Akii’s potential in formal athletics was soon noticed, he began training in both track and field events. A police officer, Joram Ochana, who conveniently happened to be the African 440-yard hurdles champion, stepped up Akii’s training regimen. Akii soon won eight events at the national police athletics championships. Aside from the hurdles, Akii was quite good at the javelin, sprints, 800m, among others, and would even set a national decathlon record. The focus on the hurdles intensified after he was placed under the tutelage of United’s new national manager, Malcolm Arnold. Arnold was Uganda’s national team manager from 1968 to 1972.
Akii-Bua triumphed in the 110-meter hurdles finals at the Central and East African Championships held in Kampala in 1969. Arnold’s influence convinced Akii that he would make more profit as a 400-meter hurdles runner. In the 400m hurdles final at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1970, Akii-Bua struggled with a hernia and back injury, trailing last in the last 100m but still running fast to become in fourth in 51.14 seconds. Akii-Bua was notably an unconventional hurdler: he could easily jump over obstacles with either his front left or right leg.
Akii-Bua’s first significant introduction to the world of athletics was her short hurdle win at USA vs. Africa (US-Pan African) meet on July 17, 1971 in Durham, North Carolina. Akii-Bua won in a staggering 49 seconds, a new African record and the fastest time of the year. The world record of 48.1 held by Great Britain’s Dave Hemery was less than a second away! Akii had beaten his Commonwealth Games demons, clearly beating his hesitant African competition, including Kenyan hurdler William Koskei, who had won silver at the Commonwealth of Nations Games. The track meet was historically significant and highly featured by Ebony magazine. Other African track stars who performed exceptionally well included legends Kipchoge Keino (1,500m) and Ben Jipcho (3,000m hurdles) from Kenya and Miruts Yifter (5,000m and 10,000m) from Ethiopia. A couple more African athletes exceeded their expectations at the meet. Akii-Bua would soon appear in the African American Encyclopedia. He would be offered athletic scholarships from various American universities, but he would turn them down on the grounds that his family needed his presence and financial support in Uganda.
At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Akii-Bua (now nicknamed “the flying policeman” in Uganda) was the only competitor to win all three heats he entered, including the acclaimed final victory. In all competitions Akii-Bua would be placed in the grueling and disadvantageous either inside lane one or two.
The semi-final in which Akii-Bua placed also included top medal prospects David Hemery (Britain’s Olympic champion) and American and world leader Ralph Mann (USA). Here Akii-Bua beat his main competition, Ralph Mann was second and Dave Hemery was third. The Finals saw the medal count being counted in exactly the same order.
At the 1972 Olympics on September 2, Akii-Bua officially became the first man in history to run the 400m hurdles in under 48 seconds, finishing first in the acclaimed world record of 47.82.
Akii-Bua and her coach Malcolm Arnold had predicted a possible world record gold medal in 47 seconds at the Olympics. Akii had trained hard, doing repetitive short and long distance obstacle courses with heavy weights strapped to his body. During a practice run, Akii-Bua is said to have unofficially sprinted short of the 400m hurdles world record at Wankulukuku Stadium near Kampala. But Akii-Bua and Arnold humbly did not give much importance to the matter and waited for the official moment to arrive. Many, including Dave Hemery, believe that Akii-Bua would have posted a significantly faster world record had he been in the convenient middle lanes other than the first “narrow” inside lane in the Olympic hurdles final.
Compared to his renowned African athletes such as Ben Jipcho (Kenya), Mike Boit (Kenya) and Filbert Bayi (Tanzania), Akii-Bua was much less active in international competition. Many attribute this to Idi Amin’s Ugandan regime (1972-1979) as being detrimental to Akii’s athletic potential. During the regime, Akii and many of his family members became targets of political interest, he was occasionally placed under house arrest, and his lack of funds meant that he would not compete or train internationally as much as his peers. Even at the Munich Olympics, Akii was wearing an old pair of puma shoes and one of them was missing a nail. Akii-Bua was from the ethnic group (Lango) of President Apollo Milton Obote, who was overthrown by soldiers loyal to Idi Amin. There were persecutions during Amin’s rule and many Langi fled into exile, many to Tanzania, and would attempt to overthrow Amin. Some of Akii-Bua’s relatives were killed during the Amin regime.
After winning the 1972 Olympic gold medal, after four decades, John Akii-Bua remains the only African Olympic gold medalist in the short distance and also hurdles. He would not participate in the 1976 Olympic Games that were held in Montreal due to the political boycott by Uganda and many other African countries. But in particular, Akii-Bua, with a personal best of 48.69s in the 400m hurdles, ranked sixth in the world. Also, several weeks before the Olympics, he had won the 400m dash at a meet in Dusseldorf with a personal best of 45.82s. Unfortunately, just three weeks before the Olympics, Akii’s left hamstring muscle tore. That would have reduced his chances of winning a medal in Montreal. It turned out that American Edwin Corley Moses would go on to win gold, finishing in a world record time of 47.63s.