A Play Of Light And Shadow

"Not like Kabale. It is high and cold. Twice a day I ran six times up a 600-meter hill, always with my heavy coat. I had two coaches at that time, Arnold and George Odeke. They gave me a program, but I did more than they asked. I don't think it was natural to do as much as I did, but I grew strong." John Velzian of Kenya, who has coached Koskei, has one word for Akii-Bua's pre-Munich regimen: "Madness."

"What possessed you?" I asked.

Akii put aside the remains of his chicken and cleaned his large hands in a finger bowl. "We don't have good facilities. Only a grass track. It takes months to get spiked shoes sent from Europe. For three or four years no one in Uganda was good enough to represent us overseas. I wanted to change that, to show that Uganda could also produce good athletes, like the Kenyans. I wanted to show that if we had the facilities the Ugandan people would be as good as any other." He was silent for a while, sipping his beer. When he spoke again it was in a less ringing, more offhand tone. "There are always many reasons why someone does something well. Of course, I wanted to run in the Olympics because of my future, but you have to understand about being from a small country. I had a chance to be the first champion from Uganda. I worked hard."

Akii-Bua went to Europe over a month before the Games and polished his speed over the hurdles. "I think it is better to always combine sprinting and hurdling in training if you want them to go together in the race. So for a week I sprinted over 200s with five hurdles. Then 300s with seven. Then two weeks over all 10. Six days before the competition I did a time trial: 48.6. I was relaxed. I didn't think of beating any individual when I trained. I just thought of the gold. Oh, I watched the others in the heats. They seemed tense and tired-looking. I thought Ralph Mann's hurdling technique was cuckoo."

The feeling might have been mutual. Mann of the U.S. and most other world-class quarter-mile hurdlers lead with their left legs. This allows them to run on the inside of the lane. Akii-Bua often leads with his right. To avoid violating the airspace of the man to his left he must run at least two feet out from the line, and landing on his right foot tends to throw him even farther from the inside of his lane. His disadvantage around two turns can be as much as four yards.

There were other reasons why the odds seemed against Akii. A week before the Games he had a tooth extracted and it still was bothering him the morning of the final. He hit the first hurdle in his semifinal, giving himself a tender, swollen knee. "I didn't report anything to my coaches. I was afraid they would say I was fearing."

The world record of David Hemery of Great Britain (48.1), set in a flawless race in Mexico, was thought to be unapproachable in the thicker air of Munich, yet Akii, with all his aches, predicted 47.5 for himself. Then he was presented with the lane assignments for the final.

"When I saw I was in Lane One, I was very disappointed," he said. The more sharply curved inside lane is despised by all one-lap runners. "I went through emotional stages," said Akii. "I went behind the stadium on the day of the race and listened to music on American Armed Forces Radio. I became determined, not sad. After that I just tried to be calm. I ran over hurdles outside the stadium and got very warm so I could relax before the start."

Akii hit the sixth hurdle in the final, but his calm resolve carried him past Hemery just before the eighth. He beat Mann by a good five yards in 47.8.

Velzian was deeply moved. "That is not just a world record," he said. "It is an incredible world record. Out of the worst lane, running 12 feet farther than anyone else, hitting that hurdle hard.... The man's strength is simply awesome."