John Aki Bua - BBC last night

thirtyfoot · 11-08-2008 9:32am #1

Did anyone see the programme on John Akii Bua last night on BBC2? It was amazing and a truly inspiring but ultimately tragic story. I was always aware and knew of Aki Bua but this had insights into his training and life in Uganda under Idi Amin and was basically came from 12 books of journals he recorded throughout his life and gave to his coach Malcolm Arnold before he died.

For anyone who doesn't know of John Akii Bua, here is a very brief summary. He grew up in Uganda and Malcolm Arnold became the Ugandan Athletic coach in the late 60's. Originally a short hurdler he didn't want to train for 400 hurdles as it was too hard but when the Commonwealths were in Scotland in '71 Arnold entered him in both. He bombed in the 110's but made the final and came 4th in the 400's behind world record holder Hemery. He then was a 400 hurlder and as Kriss Akabusi said undertook the most vicious of training regimes that winter including multiple sets of back to back 600's with 100 hurdle transitions, 1500 reps over hurdles and other such madness.

He came to Munich and won from lane 1 in the final, broke the world record and was the first man under 48 secs. With Amin taking control of Uganda, Arnold returned to the UK and that was really the last we saw of Akii Bua at his best on the world stage. The great Ed Moses saw Akii Bua as a hero and role model and they were deprived to race together in '76 with the African boycott. He made several comebacks including Moscow but was never the same as '72. He escaped with his family from Uganda and was interviewed by a European TV crew in a Kenyan refugee camp and recognised by the Puma group who rescued him and gave him a job in marketing in Germany. He returned to Uganda and died aged 47.

As Malcolm Arnold said (the guy Derval O' Rourke has worked with this winter) we only worked at it properly for two years and won an Olympic gold so that wasn't bad afterall. So true, he was such a gracefull athlete. The programme such be shown to any young, aspiring athlete.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00d1fjt

superjosh9 · 11-08-2008 11:05am

By chance, I saw it!

Was amazing - I had never heard of him. What a graceful runner! Thought the bit when Puma rescued him from the camps in Kenya was so nice to see.

If you can watch it, you should. Once again shows how easy we have it.

liverpoolmike · 11-08-2008 2:16pm

I saw it too. It was very touching to watch. I particularly liked seeing Malcolm Arnold returning and listening to Edwin Moses talking about how he took inspiration.

It was also funny hearing Kris Akabusi use the word "mankiller" about twenty times with regards to John's training.

Can I just ask a naive technical questions please, Tingle? What does back to back 600s with 100m hurdle transitions mean? Does that mean he broke up sprinting 600m by jumping hurdles?

thirtyfoot · 11-08-2008 2:54pm

liverpoolmike wrote: »

Can I just ask a naive technical questions please, Tingle? What does back to back 600s with 100m hurdle transitions mean? Does that mean he broke up sprinting 600m by jumping hurdles?

I'm assuming it was back to back 600's with 100 hurdle transitions is what I heard in which case it could be this or a variation of this:

500m on the flat then 100m over hurdles - probably very fast (sub 50sec at 400m I'd guess)
Then short recovery of maybe 45-90 secs and go again. Thats one set and I think he said he did 3 sets. Crazy stuff:eek:. Then the weighted jacket stuff was crazy too or the 1500m reps over hurdles.

liverpoolmike · 11-08-2008 3:14pm

Thanks.

That is indeed crazy stuff.

I'm researching for a play about junior track and field athletes and I'm still trying to get my head around all these bizarre reps and sets. I've got Michael Johnson's book "Slaying the Dragon" and I thought he was hardcore, that's until seeing John Akii-Bua's methods last night...

TheRoadRunner · 11-08-2008 3:36pm

liverpoolmike wrote: »

Thanks.

That is indeed crazy stuff.

I'm researching for a play about junior track and field athletes and I'm still trying to get my head around all these bizarre reps and sets. I've got Michael Johnson's book "Slaying the Dragon" and I thought he was hardcore, that's until seeing John Akii-Bua's methods last night...

I love Michael Johnson. But that slaying the dragon book was brutal. Or should I say in my opinion that book was brutal.

thirtyfoot · 11-08-2008 3:45pm

liverpoolmike wrote: »

I'm researching for a play about junior track and field athletes and I'm still trying to get my head around all these bizarre reps and sets. .

Sounds interesting, is it based in the UK?

thirtyfoot · 11-08-2008 3:56pm

Also, although its cross-country and not track, here was a great essay by a young athlete that won an award a few years ago - gives a good insight into the mind of a determined Junior athlete.

Nil Desperandum

It’s beginning to hurt. Two kilometres left. “This is it, now or never. Go with him. This is the move, damn it, stick with him.” My eyes narrow and focus on his left shoulder. His grey singlet ripples as he leads into the wind. A chunk of Dungarvan mud is nestled on his shoulder blade, flicked upwards from his spikes in the torrid conditions. He angrily puffs a stream of air from his mouth, emerging like white smoke in the icy November air. One kilometre left, and as we charge alone into the quietest part of the course, we hear nothing but each other’s footsteps.

Just us, two teenagers gasping for oxygen as they try to hang on for three more agonising minutes. I feel like agreeing a truce while we’re out here, 50-50, we’ll split the gold medal. Such thoughts don’t reside long in the mind. They are quickly replaced by more animal instincts. “You or him, Cathal. You choose. Are you going to let him beat you? This is your last junior year. Last chance. Take him out.” Eight hundred metres separate one of us from our first national cross-country title. We have returned to the noisiest part of the course, and as we swing a right-hand turn through the crowds, he lifts the pace again. Impossible. He lengthens his stride, pumps his arms backwards like pistons, and that grey singlet begins to move into the distance. “Let him go. You can’t match that. Too much pain. Not today.”

When an athlete gets injured, it’s akin to amputating a chair’s leg and expecting it to stand. The leg which supports them, defines them, disappears. They have no option but to accept their fall to the floor, try not to hit their head on landing. When that athlete’s chosen sport is one which requires obsession and insanity in equal doses, the fall is that much harder. Few know the loneliness of the injured long-distance runner.

I tore my hamstring in 2004. However, it wasn’t one of those tears you read about in papers. The ones where some player tears a hammy, goes to some treatment centre at minus 500 degrees, and then miraculously emerges the following weekend with an inspirational performance. No, this was a sinister, evil, chronic rip in the top of my right hamstring. Evil enough to require five physiotherapists and three doctors to diagnose. Evil enough to prevent me sitting in the same position for more then ten minutes. Evil enough to sentence me to the couch for six months.

Long-distance runners endure daily. We deny ourselves the comfort zone because we know the rush we get when the pain barrier is broken. That euphoric daze after a track session when your eyes cannot focus, your head pounds, and your muscles burn in a sea of lactic acid. All you want is to lie down and die. But you don’t. You run on, knowing that after this insane effort, the organism that is your body becomes stronger. So when I felt a niggle in my right buttock in 2004, I ran on.

There is a Cherokee saying: “Listen to the whispers, and you won’t have to hear the screams.” If only. Four months after I heard the whispers, I was screaming. It was on the treatment table at Gerard Hartmann’s clinic in Limerick city. He plunged his thumbs into my hamstring, pressing in further until I couldn’t take any more. I covered my face with my hands and asked him for a towel I could bite on as he tried to heal me. Back and forth, across the hamstring, minute after minute after minute. Worse than any race, worse than when I broke my collarbone. Tears rolled down my cheek, not out of some emotional decision to cry, but simply because I was writhing in agony. “Now you’re finding out, Cathal, what they go through,” he said. “Not nice, is it? Not nice at all.”

After this came four months of rest. It may sound appealing to the average armchair athlete, but to me the words resounded like a temporary death sentence. I did core exercises every day to strengthen the muscles supporting the hamstring. But nothing could support me. For four months, each day lacked purpose.

Then there were the comments. “If you were a horse, you’d have been put down by now.” “You’ve got lazy.” “Why are you so depressed? Cheer up for God sake.” Very few truly cared. Even fewer understood. I’d lie on the couch, turning from side to side, looking at my watch, hoping enough time had passed in the day to justify going back to bed. Nil Desperandum. Never despair. I despaired.

The first run I was allowed was a humiliating 12-minute hobble. I covered less than a mile and a half. My chest was tight, lungs panting, and my knees ached with the impact. My body had forgotten how to run. As I slowed to a walk after twelve minutes, sweat streaming relentlessly down my forehead, I added to the flow with a few tears. I finally knew why running was a minority sport. Gone was the feeling of effortless cruise, replaced with a painful, uncoordinated stagger. I gave up hope of ever competing at national level again. There I was, sweating profusely after a run more suited to an overweight smoker on New Year’s Day.

In running, the consensus is that it takes two days of training to make up for every one day missed. A quick calculation meant it would take me a year of training to match my previous self. A year. Fifty two weeks of cold mornings and brutal sessions. Sixty miles a week. Every week. That should teach my body how to run again.

Four hundred metres remaining. Somehow, I have regained contact with him. There is a theory in horse racing that you come wide when challenging a battling horse. Take Brave Inca. You don’t look that horse in the eye as you go past, you sneak by on the outside, hoping he won’t notice. The sight of Brendan O’Neill’s grey singlet turning the screw for the last 15 minutes has told me he’s a battler. Go wide.

I launch myself through the mud. Though my arms burn with the effort, I pump them vigorously, hoping my legs will follow suit. I drop my mouth open and try to suck in some precious air. I think of the time spent alone in my room, icing my hamstring and doing endless rehab exercises. Thoughts of the screaming on Gerard Hartmann’s table return. I attack with fury. Though this final burst is torture on my weary body, one thought resonates in my mind: “I’ve had worse.”
Through the finishing chute, first. National junior cross-country champion. My mother sprints over and hugs me, one of the few who cared and understood. No celebration. No pumping fists or victorious salutes. Just a satisfied grin to be somewhere I never thought possible 15 months ago. A drop of sweat rolls down my cheek, no doubt wondering where its accomplice was. Only minutes later, as the gold medal was draped around my neck, would a solitary tear make the familiar journey.
Ends.

THE winner of this year’s Peter Ball Memorial Essasy competition is Cathal Dennehy (19), a second year journalism student at DCU and a native of Caherdavin, Co Limerick. His entry Nil Desperendum was the outstanding article in a year where the standard was exceptionally high. The winner receives a cheque for €600 and his winning entry was published in the Sunday Tribune with the picture of the presentation.

liverpoolmike · 11-08-2008 4:29pm

Thanks for posting such a brilliant article. I've saved it to my computer for many future re-reads! I'm fascinated by the affect on personality and psyche a long-term injury has on a runner - it's like nothing else I've encountered in sport.

Yes, I'm a professional playwright from Liverpool and I've been commissioned by a London theatre to write a play on sport. I've chosen to set in the world of junior female track and field athletes. Specifically 400m runners doing warm weather training in Lanzarote.

I'm not actually a serious runner myself (regrettably), though I was in my school days and I am a sports obsessive.

So for the past six months or so I've been reading more athletics books/autobiographies than I care to remember, and I've only recently found this site which is proving to be immensely helpful and pleasureable in my research.

islandexile · 11-08-2008 10:03pm

Thanks for posting that article Tingle. Quite inspiring. Have you any recommendations for simiar material (books/articles) which would inspire a fella to put on the running gear on a cold January day?

Capital8 · 14-03-2009 1:54pm

Just read that brilliant article, it perfectly depicts our struggle as runners to achieve our goals. Just last night i got a niggle in my right backside that was affecting my leg and i was contemplating going to training today. After reading that article i was terrified of even walking!

By the way that John Aki Bua documentary was brilliant, he popped back into my mind when we were learning about the struggles of the Ugandan people the other day in school seeing as thats the focus of Trocaires lenten campaign.

Krusty_Clown · 14-03-2009 2:58pm

Oh, to be so talented. A fantastic runner, and potentially an even better writer. Thanks for posting this Tingle. Inspirational stuff.

Musere · 25-05-2009 6:32pm

At the Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh in 1970, Akii-Bua came in fourth behind Alan Pascoe, William Koskei (a Kenyan running for Uganda, but went back to Kenya which he ran for at the Olympics of 1972 in Munich); the bronze medalist was a Kenyan. As for Dave Hemery, he actually competed in the 110 meter hurdles in which he won gold. I do not think I have ever seen a hurdle specialist better than Hemery. The man timed the hurdles perfectly and went over them so smoothly!

Pherekydes · 25-05-2009 7:52pm

Musere wrote: »

At the Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh in 1970, Akii-Bua came in fourth behind Alan Pascoe...

John Sherwood was the winner. Pascoe was the 1974 champion.

Musere · 25-05-2009 8:40pm

Pherekydes wrote: »

John Sherwood was the winner. Pascoe was the 1974 champion.

Yes, you are right. I mistakenly noted Pascoe instead of Sherwood, as the winner!

John Aki Bua - BBC last night

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