Uganda's world 10,000m medallists Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo celebrate with fans in Oregon (© Getty Images)
Uganda will be going to the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 in September with the aim of improving on their brace of gold medals won in Budapest two years ago.
On that occasion, world record-holder Joshua Cheptegei won his third successive world 10,000m title while 2022 Commonwealth Games champion Victor Kiplangat prevailed in the marathon.
Add the likes of half marathon world record-holder Jacob Kiplimo, Tokyo Olympic Games 3000m steeplechase winner Peruth Chemutai and marathon runner Stella Chesang into consideration for a place on the podium and it’s not beyond the bounds of possibilities that Uganda could be set for a record medal haul in the Japanese capital.
Peruth Chemutai celebrates her 3000m steeplechase win at the Olympic Games in Tokyo (© Getty Images)
It would be a fitting accolade during a year in which the Uganda Athletics Federation celebrates its centenary, having been officially founded on 4 April 1925.
Although running and jumping competitions were part of some tribal rituals and festivities for centuries before, organised athletics in a manner that would be recognised in the modern era – like in many countries and regions across Africa – started with the arrival of the British colonial administrators at the end of the 19th century.
Documentation about how athletics took root in Uganda is scarce but the establishment of local colleges along the lines of British public schools and geared towards the education of the sons of local chiefs and kings, as well as social and sports clubs established in urban centres like Kampala, Entebbe and Jinja, gave rise to ad hoc athletics meetings.
Modest beginnings in Kampala
By 1925, there was clearly enough interest in athletics to merit the creation of a national championships and federation.
“The idea of starting an annual athletics championship in Uganda was first discussed in an informal meeting at the home of Major Lawrence at Nakasero (in early 1925). On 4 April 1925, a group of enthusiastic sports personalities convened a meeting at the then Imperial Hotel in Kampala to endorse the possibility of organising an annual athletics championships,” explains the Uganda Athletics Federation on its website.
“This inaugural meeting later gave birth to the Uganda Native (African) Athletic Association (UNAA).”
Notably the co-founders of the Association included Sidney Abrahams, the older brother of Harold Abrahams of Chariots of Fire fame and a 1912 Olympian in the long jump, who had just been appointed the Attorney General of Uganda.
It’s known that nine clubs participated in the inaugural championships on 3 August 1925 but, sadly, results from the championships’ early years appear to have disappeared into the mists of time.
For much of the next three decades, Ugandan athletics was very much a domestic affair although Uganda played host in Entebbe to the first of several international matches with neighbours Kenya in 1934.
Etolu Uganda’s earliest star
However, by the 1950s, Uganda had started to make its presence felt internationally, albeit on a modest level.
In 1954, the UNAA affiliated to the International Amateur Athletic Federation and first attended what was then the British Empire and Commonwealth Games with high jumper Patrick Etolu taking the silver medal, Uganda’s only medal in any sport in Vancouver.
Patrick Etolu competes at White City stadium in London in 1958 (© Getty Images)
The following year, the Kenya v Uganda international matches – which had expanded to include Tanganyika three years previously – were renamed as the East and Central African Championships.
Uganda then competed in the Olympic Games for the first time in 1956, sending a small team of three athletes.
Expectation was high locally that Etolu could even get a medal, having jumped 2.03m – which would last as a national record for almost 33 years – three weeks before in Mumbai en route to Melbourne but, in the end, he had to settle for 12th place with 1.96m, tired from the long journey to Australia.
Among Etolu’s teammates was triple jumper Lawrence Ogwang, who had been sixth in Vancouver and made the final in Melbourne before finishing in 20th place.
Ogwang was to win several East and Central African Championships titles but perhaps his greatest contribution to Ugandan athletics was being a role model and influence for his brother John Akii-Bua, almost 17 years his junior and part of an extended family of a county chief who had no less than 43 children.
Akii-Bua triumphs in Munich
As a teenager, Akii-Bua just missed selection for the 1968 Olympic Games as a 110m hurdler but under the guidance of British coach Malcolm Arnold, who had been appointed Uganda’s Director of Coaching earlier that year and who later was to find success again coaching Colin Jackson, Akii-Bua transitioned to the 400m hurdles.
By 1971, Akii-Bua was able to show his talent at the longer event with a series of outings under 50 seconds including winning the Africa v Germany v USA meeting in a hand-timed 49.0 for equal second on that year’s world list.
Akii-Bua produced a series of strong performances ahead of the Munich 1972 Olympic Games but was far from the favourite, with the pundits suggesting that the US champion Ralph Mann and Great Britain’s defending Olympic champion David Hemery, who had defeated Akii-Bua to win the AAA title in London six weeks before, were better bets for gold.
However, Uganda’s flagbearer in the Munich opening ceremony produced the fastest semifinal time of 49.25 and then memorably flew almost flawlessly to victory in 47.82 to become Uganda’s first Olympic champion and first world record-holder, taking 0.3 off Hemery’s mark set in Mexico City four years earlier.
John Akii-Bua wins the 400m hurdles at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 (© Getty Images)
Akii-Bua continued as one of the world's leading 400m hurdlers for several years but was unable to defend his title in Montreal owing to the African boycott and was shortly afterwards forced to flee from the regime of Idi Amin, whose operatives murdered his brother Ogwang, firstly to Kenya and then Germany.
With Amin deposed, Akii-Bua attempted to make a comeback in 1979 and made the 1980 Olympic Games semifinals, but his best days were behind him and he tragically died at the early age of 47 in 1997.
Nevertheless, to this day he remains an icon of Ugandan athletics and the federation’s centenary publicity features Akii-Bua prominently.
Akii-Bua sadly died before the Uganda national anthem was played again at an Olympic Games or World Athletics Championships – political turmoil during the 1980s and early 1990s putting the brake on any development – although he did witness Davis Kamoga take the 1996 Olympic Games 400m bronze medal.
Kamoga then went on to become the first Ugandan to win a World Athletics Championships medal when he took the 400m silver in Athens the following year, dedicating his medal to Akii-Bua who had died just six weeks before.
World Cross the catalyst for success
The new millennium saw a change in direction for Ugandan athletics as it rose to become a powerhouse in distance running.
After making its inaugural appearance at the World Cross Country Championships only in 1996 – 21 years later memorably hosting the competition to become just the third African nation to do so – Uganda took its first medal in 2000 with U20 men’s team bronze.
Boniface Kiprop then took the world cross country U20 men’s bronze medal in 2002 to become the first Ugandan distance runner to get global recognition.
He improved to win the 2004 world U20 10,000m title as well as set a world U20 record over 25 laps of the track before taking the 2006 Commonwealth Games 10,000m gold medal.
It's in Kiprop’s footsteps that all the other great Ugandan distance runners in the last 15 years have followed, while female stars like Chemutai have also openly acknowledged their debt to 2005 3000m steeplechase world champion Dorcus Inzikuru.
Dorcus Inzikuru on her way to world steeplechase gold in 2005 (© Getty Images)
Uganda’s Olympic gold medal drought in all sports ended in 2012 when Stephen Kiprotich strode to marathon victory around the streets of London.
The gold rush on a global stage has not abated since.
Cheptegei notably took the last two Olympic 10,000m titles in addition to his hat-trick of World Athletics Championships triumphs while Kiplimo, in addition to his half marathon record runs and 2020 world title over that distance, also won world cross country titles in 2023 and 2024.
Consequently, it’s likely that Ugandan athletics will have much more to celebrate in 2025 than just its federation’s centenary.
Phil Minshull for World Athletics Heritage
