Race To The FinishMarathon Winner Josia Thugwane became the first South African black to take goldby Michael Bamberger
THE HOUSE lights were on and helicopters buzzed overhead when the first runners of the men's marathon entered Olympic Stadium at 9:10 yesterday morning, a morning that was hazy and oddly cool. Several thousand spectators began clapping. They made a distinctive sound. It was nothing like the lusty roars that spurred on the U.S. men's basketball team when it went for the kill. Nor was it like the wild shrieking that greeted most of the dismounts by the U.S. women gymnasts. The clapping yesterday morning was serious and sustained, and it wasn't for Americans. It was for the marathoners and for the marathon, to many the sporting center of any Summer Olympics.
And if these Centennial Games in Atlanta were, in some untouchable place, about tolerance, about the New South, about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then the marathon could not have had a more fitting winner. The victor was Josia Thugwane of South Africa, who ran the grueling course in two hours, 12 minutes and 36 seconds. Thugwane is the first black to win an Olympic gold medal competing for South Africa. After a 28-year ban the country was permitted to rejoin the Olympics in 1992, having abolished the laws of apartheid that had created two classes of citizens according to skin color.
In the closest Olympic marathon finish ever, Thugwane beat Lee into the stadium and to the wire.
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In triumph, Thugwane chose to honor Nelson Mandela. "I won the medal for my country," he said. "I won the medal for my president."
Lee Bong Ju of South Korea was second, three seconds behind Thugwane in the closest finish in Olympic marathon history. Eric Wainaina of Kenya was third, another five seconds back. The three men finished in the same order in which they entered the stadium.
The race, normally held close to dusk, began at 7:05 a.m. in deference to Atlanta's extreme summer heat and went by landmarks now familiar to hundreds of thousands of Olympic visitors. Past the Woodruff Arts Center; past the massive malls of Buckhead; up to Oglethorpe, at which point the runners made a U-turn; then back down through downtown; past Centennial Olympic Park; across the Capital Avenue bridge and into the stadium. Fans lined the racecourse along the way, knowing that this was the end. It was 1:35 into the race—as a leading pack of 22 runners approached midtown and the race's three-quarter mark—that Thugwane moved in front, a position he never relinquished.
Thugwane is a modest man. He works in a coal mine. He owns a car, a material accomplishment that is uncommon for many blacks in South Africa. In March he was carjacked by three men, and a bullet grazed his chin as he was escaping from his car. "I thought it may not be possible for me to run again," he said.
His country, of course, is far from perfect. But it is better than it was when he was born, 25 years ago. "There are equal opportunities," Thugwane said, "unlike in the past." He's the proof of it—living, running proof.
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