TANZANIAN women go down in the country’s history as the first to bring medals in the realm of international sports.
The first Tanzania’s medal in international sports, silver, was won in 1965, during the All Africa Games in Brazaville, Congo, through Theresia Dismas when she threw the javelin 40.24 meters.
The first spot went to Nigeria’s Helen Okwara who posted 40.30 meters and thereby winning gold in the event while Angelina Anyakwa, also from Nigeria, posted 39.48 meters, to clinch to clinch a bronze medal.
Theresia Dismas’ efforts in javelin won Tanzania the 9th spot in the Brazaville All Africa Games, hence taking the second spot in East, Central and Southern Africa after Kenya who finished second after Nigeria.
Uganda finished third in the region after finishing tenth in the Games and this was quite a feat for a country that had attained its independence barely five years back.
It was not until 1970 that the first Tanzanian man, Titus Simba, won a silver medal in boxing during the Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Simba lost in the final of a controversial middleweight bout that many fans who had witnessed the encounter believed the Tanzanian had won.
The gold medal went to a Briton, John Conteh, who immediately after the fight tried to woo Simba to join his stable.
Conteh’s decision to seek the assistance of the Tanzanian pugilist as a sparring partner had followed his decision to turn professional after the Games.
Given the difficulty he had had in winning the bout, Conteh knew that with Simba as his sparring partner, he would be able to do well in the professional ranks.
Unfortunately, much as Simba had wanted to change his life by joining the British boxer, he could not since as a soldier in the Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces, TPDF, it was not easy during the time.
In the soccer field, although Dar es Salaam Young Africans Sports Club became the first club to be closely linked with the continental club championship, then referred to as the All Africa Club Championship.
However, it was their arch-rivals, Simba Sports Club which became the first Tanzanian club to reach the quarter and semi finals of the continental club championship.
Young Africans were in 1969 knocked out of the tournament by Ghana’s Asante Kotoko through a toss of coin having drawn 1-1 in Dar es Salaam.
A fortnight earlier, both clubs had produced the same results when they played in Kumasi, Ghana.
In 1970, Young Africans were once again drawn against their Ghanaian counterparts and results were more or less the same, draw all the way from Ghana to Dar es Salaam!
Lack of experience in international sports management finally forced the Tanzanian club out of the tournament, for instead of pressing for a replay on the following day, they left the Ghanaians off the hook, giving the continental soccer body, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) then under the leadership of an Ethiopian, Mr Tessema (and highly dominated by Egyptians) an opportunity to stage a play off in a neutral country.
After a month, it was decided that Young Africans would take on the Ghanaian club in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where cholera had just broken out!
The Tanzanian club’s effort to seek another venue failed, buttressed by the Ethiopian government’s promise that everything would be done to protect players from the two clubs from the disease.
Finally Young Africans were knocked out of the tournament when they went down by two goals to nil.
Interestingly, Asante Kotoko would go on to the quarter, semi final, final and win the continental club championship!
Three years later, in 1973, it was the turn of the Tanzanian athletes, and the stage was the All Africa Games held in Lagos, Nigeria.
These were the times when Kenyans through Kipchoge Keino, Charles Asati, Julius Sang, Naftali Temu held sway in athletic field continentally and internationally.
A young, unknown Tanzanian soldier, Filbert Bayi, from the TPDF (air force) who had until a few months back played as a goalkeeper for an air force unit was now challenging world champion Kipchoge Keino in the 1,500 metres race final.
The rest is of course history, for Filbert Bayi did not only beat Keino to become the undisputable new 1,500m Africa champion in a sensational race, but he also went on to introduce in international athletics the era of front-running in middle distance races.
Apart from Filbert Bayi, the other Tanzanian who won a medal during the Lagos games was Habib Kinyogoli.
The Tanzanian pugilist won a bronze in featherweight division, bringing the number of medals won in boxing since 1970 to two.
Titus Simba who had travelled to Lagos to compete in his favourite middleweight division was disqualified in the eleventh hour because of overweight in the division.
In 1974, Filbert Bayi repeated the feat, this time during the Commonwealth Games held in Christchurch, New Zealand where apart from Keino, he also beat other greats in the distance, namely John Walker, who had been widely tipped to win the race, and Jimmy Ryun.
What was more, Filbert Bayi did something else in the course of winning that historic race; he broke the world record in the distance by setting a new record of three minutes, 32.2 seconds which stuck for seven years!
Apparently, Filbert Bayi’s success in the event was not only noticed by sports fans the world over, but also by some world leaders such as Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Michael Manley.
The Jamaican prime minister phoned his friend, President Julius Nyerere to congratulate him on Bayi’s success!
Apart from Bayi, another Tanzanian athlete who won a medal during the Christchurch Commonwealth Games, a bronze, was Claver Kamanya who finished third in the 400m race.
Therefore Kamanya goes down in Tanzania’s athletics annals as the only Tanzanian who has to date won a medal in a short distance race, which is highly technical, in an international sporting event.
Through the Christchurch Club Games, Filbert Bayi would become the greatest athlete who had ever graced Tanzania.
Before the end of 1974, another Tanzanian team, Simba Sports Club set out to wipe out their soccer archrivals’ (Young Africans) success in continental club championship when they reached the quarter and later, in the same year, the semifinal in the tournament.
Apart from surpassing Young Africans’ record, Simba scored another first over their rivals when they killed the Ghanaian jinx by beating Hearts of Oak, hence qualifying for the semifinal date date with Egypt’s textile team, Mehalla el Kubra.
Simba were however, later knocked out by the Egyptian club in the semifinal after failing to protect their lone goal lead scored a fortnight back through their striker, Saad Ally, in the dying minutes of the game in their first leg match played at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam.
Six years later, during the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games marred by boycotts by Western countries in protest over the then Soviet Union’s involvement in the Afghanistan war, Filbert Bayi won a silver medal, but this time in 3000m flat and his colleague, Suleiman Nyambui won a silver medal in 5,000m.
The two medals were first ever to be won by Tanzanian athletes in the Olympic Games.
Prior to the Moscow Games, United States had led the world in boycotting the Games, sent across the world, including Tanzania, former world heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammed Ali (Cassius Clay), to persuade developing countries to stay away from the Games.
Interestingly, over three decades later the same country that had persuaded the rest of the world to stay away from Moscow Olympics because of the Kremlin’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan is itself presently involved in the same war and in the same country!
Apart from the Olympic silver medal, Nyambui won a bronze medal in 5,000m during the 1978 All Africa Games and twice finished first in 1987 and 1988 in the Berlin Marathon in the then West Germany.
Before the summer Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, Tanzanians were afforded another smile, in the sporting realm, when Tanzania’s national soccer team under the tutelage of a local Germany trained coach, Joel Bendera (currently the Morogoro Regional Commissioner) qualified, for the first time in the country’s history, for the Africa Cup of Nations currently referred to as Africa Nations Cup, AFCON, in Lagos, Nigeria.
Tanzania was however, knocked out in the preliminaries after going down 1-3 to Nigeria, drawing one all against the Ivory Coast and going down 1-2 to Egypt.
To qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations, Tanzania beat Zambia by a one goal to nil before the then Zambia’s first soccer fan, President Kenneth Kaunda.
The historic goal was slotted in by Peter Tino in a match played at Zambia’s sprawling Independence Stadium in Lusaka.
Since then, Tanzania has unfortunately failed to qualify for the continental tournament due to a variety of reasons that include, among others, poor preparations for qualifiers.
Other Tanzanian sportsmen who left their mark in athletics in 1980s included Gidamas Shahanga who won a gold medal in marathon in 1978 during the Edmonton Club Games in Canada and TPDF Lieutenant Colonel, Juma Ikangaa.
Juma Ikangaa won his first gold medal in marathon in 1982 when he posted two hours, 21 minutes and 05 seconds in the event during the All Africa Games held in Cairo, Egypt.
In the same year, Ikangaa who was then a young army officer in the TPDF, won a silver medal during the Commonwealth Games held in Brisbane, Australia during which he posted two hours, 09 minutes and 30 seconds.
During his long career as a long distance athlete, Ikangaa won gold medals in marathon during the Melbourne Marathon in Australia in 1983, World Athletics Championships in Helensiki, Finnland; in 1984 during the Melbourne Marathon in Australia and the Tokyo Marathon in the same year; and in 1986 during the historic Fukuoka Marathon in Japan.
The Fakuoka Marathon was historic for Ikangaa for the simple reason that it combined with the Tokyo Marathon to make the diminutive Tanzanian army officer the most well known Tanzanian in Japan!
Ikangaa’s fame would later earn Tanzania a piece of land on which the Tanzanian embassy was built in the country where getting a piece of land for putting up anything is extremely difficult!
In 1987, Ikangaa struck another gold this time in China when he won the Beijing Marathon.
In 1988, Ikangaa finished second in the world famous New York City Marathon and in the following year, in 1989, he finished first in New York City marathon.
Twice, in 1989 and 1990, Ikangaa finished second in the Boston Marathon, in the United States.
Like his predecessor, Filbert Bayi, Ikangaa was a front runner who did not believe in sticking at the back of the pack and breaking out a few kilometers before the end of the race.
He said such tactic has served him well as long as he lasted in the athletics realm.
Juma has since retired both from the race and the army as a Colonel, a no mean achievement both professionally and as an athlete.
In the words of former Tanzania’s Ambassador to Japan, Mr Lukindo, “Ikangaa’s victory in the Fukuoka Marathon and other aces in that country had transformed him into the best known Tanzanian in Japan.”
Ambassador Lukindo said the publicity work on Tanzania in Japan made by Ikangaa was such that it had surpassed that that had been done by Tanzanian diplomats.
Regionally, Tanzanian soccer clubs, led by Simba Sports Club and Young Africans have had quite a share in terms of winning the regional club championship, officially referred to as the CECAFA Kagame Regional Club Championship, with Simba leading in winning the coveted trophy more than any Tanzanian club.
Simba Sports Club also holds a record of being the only Tanzanian club to have reached the finals of Confederation of African Football, CAF, late in 1993 when they lost at home to Ivory Coast’s Stella Abidjan in the return leg held in Dar es Salaam.
Interestingly, Tanzania’s fifty years’ independence anniversary is concluded in the same way it was opened during its first decade, by women!
Indeed, just as Theresia Dismas had become the first Tanzanian and a woman to win a medal during the All Africa Games held in Brazaville, Congo, in the say way the fifty year mark is closed by a women team.
It would be recalled that a few months ago, the Tanzania national netball team returned home with a silver medal, just as Theresia Dismas had done over 45 years ago, after losing in the final against their Ugandan counterparts during the All Africa Games held in Maputo, Mozambique!
If history is to be repeated, then the national netball team’s feat in Mozambique means that it is now the turn of Tanzanian men to win medals having been ushered in by their sisters in the same way that Theresia Dismas had done in Congo Brazaville over 40 years ago!
By Attilio Tagalie
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