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Cheptegei win: Another reminder on priorities
Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda celebrates with his national flag after winning Olympic gold in the Men's 10,000m Final at Stade de France in France on August 02, 2024. PHOTO/REUTERS
What you need to know:
- The issue: Sports
- Our view: We cannot tap into the advantages of sports unless we make a deliberate investment in them.
Do we still need a reminder on the need to invest in sports? Over the years, everymajor victory by an athlete attracts debate about the need to put more money into the sub-sector.
If we still need reminders, Ugandan athletics will continue to throw them at us. The latest was Friday night’s triumph by Joshua Cheptegei at the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympic Games in France.
Cheptegei withstood surging Ethiopian team tactics to claim gold in the men’s Olympic 10,000-metre race at the Stade de France. The three-time world champion timed an Olympic record of 26 minutes and 43.14 seconds for victory.
Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi edged American Grant Fisher by two-hundredths of a second totake silver in 26:43.44. The world record holder added the Olympic 10,000 metres title to his remarkable haul to take the Games’ first track gold.
The debate has got deeper than the Shs100m he will receive from the government and the pomp that will follow at the State House and in Parliament.
Today, sports is not only about the one percent like Cheptegei.
It should be deeper as the demographic that partakes in sports is the youth. With a young population devoid of opportunities, sports is a game changer to diversify the job market. The benefits are extremely wide.
Sports persons don’t give up. That’s very good training, character formation. Some of the sports teach you how to cooperate, even running. It is also good entertainment. Sports also teaches you to be magnanimous, if you win, good. If you don’t win, you go back to train and plan.
Sports people do not have selfish attitudes which define large sections of our society. Another benefit of sport is publicity for the country. It has also become a job, unlike in the past when it was just playing games. We cannot tap into these unless we make a deliberate investment in sports. The eternal cry is stadiums.
With the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations set to be hosted by East Africa, the government has put some attention on stadiums. Money, not all of it, has been set aside to build stadiums in Hoima and Lira. But, this cannot wholly rectify the injustices against sports.
There has to be more but all this must be done with realism. The target cannot be 70,000-seater stadiums like the Stade de France lest we build white elephants.
Our target should be a 3,000-seater regional stadium fitted with modern amenities and avalanche training facilities. We have to start to avoid wasting moments like Cheptegei’s.
