Wake up, Tanzania! The marathon is not the only race in the world!

DAR ES SALAAM: ONCE upon a time, Tanzania ran, jumped, hurdled and threw its way into international athletics history. Today we seem content to put nearly all our sporting eggs in the marathon basket.

So, as our athletics administrators settle into their Sunday rest, allow me to remind them that the world of athletics extends well beyond 42 kilometres. Let us first celebrate our marathon champions.

Alphonce Felix Simbu’s gold at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo was a magnificent achievement. But surely, my dear countrymen, we cannot keep asking a handful of marathon runners to carry the whole nation’s athletics ambitions on their shoulders. Even the strongest shoulders get tired. Let us travel back to 1974.

At the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, a young Filbert Bayi won the 1,500 metres in a world-record 3 minutes 32.16 seconds. The following year he broke the world mile record in Jamaica.

At the 1980 Moscow Olympics, he won silver in the 3,000 metres steeplechase, and Suleiman Nyambui also won silver in the 5,000 metres at the same Games. Two Olympic silver medals at one Games! Imagine the celebrations if we managed that today.

Bayi and Nyambui had company: Zakariah Barie, Gidamis Shahanga, Leodigard Martin, Emmanuel Ndiemandoi and, later, Juma Ikangaa, who took his place among the world’s leading marathon runners.

That generation believed international competition was not a privilege reserved for other countries. And we had athletes beyond distance running. In October 1979, Jumanne Chobanga clocked a hand-timed 10.1 seconds in the 100 metres. It would not count as a valid record under today’s rules, but it was a remarkable run.

David Lukuba ran the 100 and 200 metres at Moscow. Mwalimu Ally and Peter Mwita also represented us in the Olympic sprints, and before them came Claver Kamanya and Norman Chihota.

These gentlemen were not merely running to catch departing buses. They were trained athletes facing international opposition. The women were there too.

Nzaeli Kyomo ran the 100 and 200 metres at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, and Mosi Alli competed in the sprints at Moscow. So where are their successors?

Among Tanzania’s millions of young people, surely somebody can run extraordinarily fast. Or have all our gifted sprinters been absorbed into the unofficial national sport of chasing daladalas? Then there was Zakayo Malekwa, the man who threw Tanzania into history.

He did not need 42 kilometres to make us proud. He picked up a javelin, competed at three straight Olympics (Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988), won bronze at the 1982 Commonwealth Games and reached a personal best of 87.68 metres with the old-design javelin in 1984.

We also had Morris Okinda in the 400 metres hurdles, Salum Hassan in the 110 metres hurdles, Masud Tawakali in the high jump, Leticia Athanas in the long jump and Catherine Nyamuko in the shot put.

Not all of them won medals, but they belonged to a sporting culture that made room for many kinds of athletic ability. Today, how many Tanzanian schoolchildren have held a proper javelin?

How many schools have a working high jump pit or access to a qualified hurdles coach? Some of our future champions may be throwing stones at mango trees right now, with no idea where that arm could take them.

The numbers tell an uncomfortable story. At Moscow in 1980, Tanzania entered athletes in a dozen athletics events: sprints, middle distance, long distance, steeplechase, marathon and javelin.

At Paris in 2024, our athletes competed in two: the men’s and women’s marathons. From a broad programme to two road races, with everything in one basket and a prayer that nobody drops it.

Part of the answer lies in the decline of grassroots development. In earlier decades, school competitions, the armed forces, Police, Prisons, Immigration and other institutions spotted athletes and fed them into organised training.

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A youngster could be discovered at a school championship and end up in a proper programme. UMITASHUMTA and UMISSETA still exist, but an annual competition is not a year-round development system. A talented child needs regular coaching, equipment, competition and encouragement.

A school champion should not vanish into sporting oblivion the moment he or she has received a certificate and shaken hands with the guest of honour. Then there is coaching.

A marathon coach does not become an expert in javelin, hurdles or pole vault simply because they all fall under the word “athletics”.

Technical events need technical knowledge, and we have let that knowledge thin out. My dear distinguished officials, wherever you are enjoying your Sunday tea, allow me one small question.

What exactly is our national plan for making Tanzania competitive again across track and field? Please spare us another workshop or another committee whose greatest output is attendance allowances and group photographs. We need a practical programme with measurable results.

Start with the schools. Restore serious athletics competition at the district and regional levels and keep it going all year.

Train qualified coaches in sprints, hurdles, jumps and throws. Set up regional development centres with proper facilities and a national league that gives athletes regular races. Bring back our former champions as mentors. Persuade businesses to sponsor athletes outside the marathon.

And build a national database of promising youngsters before their talent slips away. The Military, Police, Prisons, universities, local councils and companies all have a part to play, through jobs, scholarships, sponsorship and organised clubs. The government has announced investments in sports infrastructure and sports education. Well and good.

But facilities need competent coaching, regular competition and honest monitoring of results. A beautiful stadium without a development programme is simply an expensive place to sit and admire the grass.

We as journalists are not innocent. We cheer athletes when they win medals and ignore the years of work that come before. Where are the stories about promising school sprinters? The profiles of young female jumpers and throwers?

The interviews with retired champions whose knowledge could help today’s generation? We should be recording this history while the people who made it are still here to tell it. Also, a national athletics archive of photographs, results and interviews would be money well spent.

Young Tanzanians should know that before today’s marathon stars, there were Tanzanians who took on the world in many disciplines. Nobody is asking Tanzania to abandon the marathon. Keep investing in it and open the other doors as well.

The next Filbert Bayi may be running around a school field in Mbeya. The next Nzaeli Kyomo could be winning races in Mwanza. The next Zakayo Malekwa might be somewhere in Morogoro, with an extraordinary arm and no javelin to throw. These youngsters may well have the talent.

The real tragedy would be a country that never gave them the chance to find it. So, to our athletics administrators: wake up from that comfortable slumber. Dust off the old records, visit the schools, talk to the former champions, set targets and account for the results.

And, for heaven’s sake, remember that a stadium has more than one starting line. Our marathon runners have carried the flag with honour.

It is high time we gave them some company. Happy Sunday, and may this reach the right desks before Monday morning’s first meeting! Honourable Mtaka, our brand-new Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) boss, are you reading this?