Scorecard

"I left by car, dressed in my police uniform, trying to look as I usually do," he continued. "Along the way about 30 soldiers suddenly jumped out of the bush, stopped me and demanded I take them to Jinja. I knew if I did that I would never come back, so I told them I was on duty in the police operations room and had to repair a VHF receiver that was out of order. To make them believe my story, I had to head back to Kampala.

"The next day I tried again. This time I joined a West German diplomatic convoy. My uncle was with me, and we spotted three carloads of boys from the State Research Bureau [ Amin's security and terror squad]. We jumped into our Peugeot and outran them after 30 kilometers. I knew we couldn't go into Tororo town or we'd be spotted, so we went to where my wife was staying and hid out for three days. Then she walked six miles with the kids from Malaba through the bush and crossed the Kenya border at Amungurha. I drove three miles through the bush to Busia in Kenya, paying local villagers to show me the way."

Kenyan authorities held Akii-Bua and other Ugandans, many of them Amin's aides, there for a month. His wife told the West German newspaper Die Welt that it was only luck that saved her husband from being sent back to Uganda and killed in the bloody days that followed the defeat of Amin's forces.

Upon being released in Kenya, Akii-Bua sent his family to West Germany, and having waited until some order had been restored in Uganda, he briefly visited Kampala to check on other relatives. There he discovered that his home had been looted and that his Olympic gold medal was gone.

Akii-Bua was unable to compete at the 1976 Montreal Olympics because of the boycott by Black African nations and his first international competition since 1975 came last summer in Algiers. But he vows he will resume racing. He soon will decide whether to remain in West Germany or return to Uganda to train for the 1980 Games in Moscow. "So much of Uganda is destroyed that it is hard to train at home," he said, "but I still plan to return to live there. I would like to win a medal for my country."

PEAKS AND VALLEYS

Ah, but life can be confounding. Consider Ronnie Franklin, the controversial 19-year-old rider of Spectacular Bid. Last week Franklin was arrested in California—at Disneyland, no less—for allegedly possessing a small amount of cocaine. It was but the latest in a series of incidents that have had Franklin riding an emotional roller coaster.

Just a month ago, fresh from victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Ronnie was enjoying the acclaim attendant on a jockey who seemed to have the Triple Crown locked up.

But abruptly things went sour. A paternity suit was filed against him the week before the Belmont Stakes. He tangled with Angel Cordero during a race and the two later exchanged blows in the jockeys' room. Then came the Belmont. Spectacular Bid finished third, and Franklin was criticized for giving the colt a bad ride.

One of the few to come to Franklin's defense after the Belmont was Bid's trainer Bud Delp, who said, "Ronnie rode the horse just perfect. Exactly the way I would've rode him.... The best horse [Coastal] won the race, that's all."