After years of medal drought, Tanzania finally won a medal, silver, this week in the on-going 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique, through its netball team, Taifa Queens.
The last time Tanzania won medals in the same Games that is worth writing home about was in 1973 when Filbert Bayi bagged a gold in 1500 metres.
In one of the world’s athletic upsets, Filbert Bayi, beat Kenya’s living athletic legend, former Police Inspector, Kipchoge Keino when the Games were held in Lagos, Nigeria.
Bayi’s victory apart, the young Tanzanian who had just a few months back switched from playing in goal into athletic, gave the world another first, what has now come to be known as front-running in long distance running.
Until then, world athletic beaters that included, among others, Kip Keino, Jim Ryun (1500), Naftali Temu (10,000 metres, Kenya), Bikila Abebe (the first man from Africa to win Olympic marathon during the 1960 Rome Olympics, and Mamo Wolde (all from Ethiopia) preferred to stay at the back before they finally broke away from the pack to win their respective races.
However, when Bayi invaded the athletic world, he turned all that upside down, launching the world into front running.
A few years later, he was followed by countryman, Juma Ikangaa who used to lead the pack, in marathon, from start to finish.
Juma Ikangaa’s athletic exploits helped in advertising Tanzania in Japan more than what any Tanzanian diplomat had done in history, according former Tanzania ambassador to Japan, Mr Lukindo.
In fact, it was through Ikangaa’s marathon fame that Tanzania was given a piece of land (in a country where a piece of land is very difficult to get) in Japan to build its embassy!
Apart from Bayi’s medal, pugilist, Habib Kinyogoli also carted home a medal, a bronze in his featherweight division in the same Lagos Games.
In fact, in the same year, Tanzania could have won its third medal in boxing in the middleweight division, had hard punching Titus Simba not been disqualified from the competition on weight problems.
Barely three years back, in 1970, Simba had won a silver medal in the same weight when he lost, controversially, to British boxer, John Conteh, during the final in the Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh, Scotland.
From then onwards, save for the 1978 gold medal won in marathon by Giddamas Shahanga during a Commonwealth Games, and the Fukuoka marathon won by the midget TPDF Colonel, Juma Ikangaa, Tanzanians have miserably failed to shine in continental and international championships.
Therefore the historic Taifa Queens victory comes at a time when this nation appears to have completely lost hope of winning any medal in international championships.
What makes the national netball team’s victory both historic and unique is that this is a team that has received the least assistance both from the government and the Tanzanian corporate world!
Yet despite being accorded very little assistance compared to footballers (men), they have made Tanzanians proud.
Taifa Queens’ victory is a further pointer both to the government and the Tanzanian corporate world that it is perhaps time they reviewed their assistance policy to sports teams in the country.
As already noted, football, and in particular, Taifa Stars, have for over a decade now received a lion’s share of assistance.
But the best they have done to their country is repeatedly let the us down!
Interestingly, another team that has done quite well despite being accorded very little assistance both by the government and the Tanzanian corporate world is women’s national soccer team, Twiga Stars.
With more assistance, Twiga Stars could equally do well. The same thing can be more or less said about another team, national amateur boxing team which has a lot of potential, but have always been let down by lack of assistance.
At one time Tanzanian boxers were left without food as they prepared for international championships!
While women in the political arena have been talking hoarse about the need to be given special seats in the parliament, their sporting sisters have to the contrary not begged for favours!
They have instead worked, in the words of former Zambian President, Frederick Chiluba, like electricicy; silently, as rightly illustrated by Taifa Queens!
Through their historic victory, Taifa Queens have killed the jinx in the same way Theresa Dismas did during the same Games in 1965, namely, opened winning ways for Tanzanian men!
Perhaps it would also be timely to remind ourselves of the fact that the first international medal in the sports arena to be won by Tanzania as a nation was won not by a man, but rather by a Tanzanian woman, Theresa Dismas and the event was in Javelin during the All Africa Games held in Congo Brazaville in 1965!
Theresa Dismas’ victory would later open the field for victories in international sports arena by the likes of Titus Simba, Filbert Bayi, Habib Kinyogoli, Giddamas Shahanga, Juma Ikangaa and others.
In fact, at one time, from the late 1970s to 1980s, Tanzanians were so good in long distance running that they joined Kenyans, Ethiopians and Moroccans as long distance specialists in the world.
Tanzania’s name in international athletics took to the sky in 1974 when Bayi won not only a gold medal in the 1500 metres during the Commonwealth Games held in Christchurd, New Zealand, but went on to break a world record in the even when he set 3minutes, 32.2 seconds, a record that held sway for seven years!
To win the event, Bayi beat the world’s most spoken and written about athlete, John Walker, who had been touted to win the event.
By beating the then most feared man in the world in the event, Walker, that also saw the participation of another legend, Australia’s Ron Clarke, Filbert Bayi proved to the world that his victory against Kenya’s nicknamed, bicycle, Kip Keino, had not been a fluke after all.
By Attilio Tagalile
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