Akii-Bua’s legacy: The story of Uganda’s only Gold Medal

For those that were not there to see it in real time, video footage is all there is to relive that moment...that moment when Uganda won its first, and still, only Olympic gold medal.

The year was 1972. The venue was Munich, the German capital. Physically, John Akii-Bua’s presence on the track contrasted with that of his competitors; he, a dark skinned man, wore a red vest and a red pair of shorts, so small they seemed to cover only his buttocks. The other athletes were white, dressed in a combination of white, blue and black outfits.

He ran in the inside lane, the one where you start way behind everybody else. When the shot that set them off was fired, he was chasing the park. But by the time he turned into the final stretch, the park was chasing him.

By then, the adrenaline in the voice of the commentator on the video was now on a high. Akii-Bua leaped over the second last hurdle, right leg first, then the left. He swung his arms back and forth in rhythm with his legs. Even his head arched forwards whenever his legs and arms made their rhythmic cycle.

He jumped over his last hurdle with victory in sight. “The African is going to win it,” remarked the commentator. He did it in less than 48 seconds, a new world record for the 400 metres hurdles. The first Ugandan to win an Olympic gold medal, the first African to win a gold medal in any race under 800 metres. John Akii-Bua had cemented his name in history. After the race, he continued running along the track as if the race was not over.

If that video could be the best way to relive that moment of acclaim, his gold medal is probably the best reminder we have of his feat. And the story of that gold medal, how it has lived the past 40 years, could be representative of more than just the medal itself. It tells the story of a man that won but felt unappreciated, it tells the story of a country and how it treats its heroes, it tells the story of a simple family, caught in the loops of history.

Sacred
Nothing about the apartment on Kitintale hill where we found the medal would suggest anything historical was lurking about. But it is in here, at the home of Tony, Akii-Bua’s son, that we found it. He had assembled it on a sofa, and it simply lay there, as if oblivious of what significance it holds. It sat back in the comfort of other artefacts from Akii-Bua’s successful days – that famous red vest he wore at the race, the flag he held on his return, and the jackets with his names printed on the breast that he wore at the tournament. Tony refuses to divulge information of where he keeps the medal, or the artefacts for that matter. “I keep them in storage,” is all he says, “safe storage”. He is the eldest son and says that is the reason why he is the one who keeps it.

As you talk to Bua-Akii, you sense that the family, or at least he, holds a strong sense of reverence towards the medal. He and his siblings clean it once every six months with cotton wool and a dry towel, he says. In fact, at times they just feel like pulling it out and cleaning it, and away they go, he adds.

So intense is the sense of reverence towards the medal, Bua-Akii does not allow anyone to touch it. The only people he says can touch the medal are family, members of the police force (John Akii-Bua was a career police officer), Members of Parliament and journalists. And not all journalists can touch it. “It would have to be someone who really knows what it means to hold it,” he says.

This sacredness has been part of the family since childhood. Bua-Akii says his father used to keep the medal in a drawer while they were young. And as children, “We would walk and run around it and see it there, but we would not pick and play with. It is something you would be ready to defend.”

Two gold medals
But the gold medal has seen some tough times. Akii-Bua fled Uganda to Kenya in 1979 as the surging artillery of Tanzanian-backed forces roared towards Kampala to oust Idi Amin. In the scuffle and haste, he forgot his medal behind. His son says Akii-Bua arrived in Germany later, thinking he had lost the medal. He asked for a replacement and it was given. But the original medal was not lost.

Akii-Bua’s brother had buried it in a suitcase stuffed with clothes in Abako, Lira District. He would be reunited with his original medal in 1981, and from then, the family has kept the two gold medals. When the suitcase with the medal was dug out from the ground, all the clothes inside had been eaten away by all manner of micro-organisms, and only the medal remained intact.

Bua-Akii says in in 2004 their family was thrown out of their house President Amin had awarded to Aki-Bua as a reward for his feat in Germany. His father had been dead seven years by the time. He says this was the only time the thought of selling the medal occurred to him.

“If there was someone who had the money, he would be owning it by now,” he says. He did not have any particular monetary value he attached to it. He just wanted to sell it and buy a house in which to keep his father’s artefacts, he says.

“But I put myself in my father’s shoes,” Bua-Akii says. “There were lots of emotions in play, and the last question you have is would your dad do that?” This, and the fact that the Uganda police force was there for the family, kept Bua-Akii from selling off the medal. Physically, the original gold medal has lost a bit of its shine. The newer one has a stronger sparkle, and still has its holding chain. On the front is an image of a woman holding an olive branch, with the words “XX Olympiade Munchen 1972,” for “The twentieth Olympics Munich 1972” above. There is also an image of pillars from ancient Greek arenas, to which the Olympics owe their origin. At the back is an image of two nude men, holding each other at the shoulders. In ancient Greece, participants in the Olympics used to compete while nude.

John Aki-Bua museum
Bua-Akii says the family plans to collaborate with the Uganda police force to turn John Akii-Bua’s house in Kamwokya into a sports museum. Bua-Akii says there are many sports personalities who have been forgotten, or even just not celebrated at all and yet they achieved huge milestones for the country in sport. This museum, he says, would help to correct that. It would cater for all sport and not only athletics, and it is here that he plans to finally put up his father’s gold medal on display.

The son of the gold medalist says since his childhood, he has not seen anyone, other than family and friends, who has come up and showed interest in even simply seeing the gold medal or artefacts of his father.

You can sense the feeling of being deserted in his voice as he speaks. Every so often, he interjects his sentences with talk about being neglected and being unappreciated especially as seen in the way they were evicted from the house. All that yet he feels – and he is probably right – that his father was such an important figure in not only the country’s sport, but the country as a whole.

In all fairness, you cannot deny John Aki-Bua his rightful place in Ugandan history. And the longer it takes before that elusive second gold medal at the Olympics comes, the more significant his feat will be. John Akii-Bua’s gold medal is a milestone with which we could gauge our progress in sport.

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