‘I was aware from an early age of the greatness of Abebe Bikila’ No 14, Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia Barefooted Bikila makes his move in the 1960 Olympic marathon Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer Recommend? (3) Africa is great. Africa is full of great people doing great things. Africa is a place of joy, of inspiration, of hope. To spend time in Africa is to change your understanding of the world, and to do so for the better. Every visitor to Africa, no matter how generous, gains more from Africa than he is capable of giving. Africa is not a basket case. Africa is not a place without hope, without ambition, without plan. Africa does not exist as a bottomless pit for aid and charity. Africa is not remarkable only for its wounds, whether self-inflicted or inflicted by the colonial powers. Africa is more. Africa is greater than we can understand, and infinitely richer. Some things in Africa do inspire pity, horror and guilt, but there is far more to Africa than the stock responses of the people from richer nations. Africa is not — absolutely not — the continent of the eternal loser. And the thing that tells us this more clearly than any other aspect of life is sport. In the simple parables of the sporting life, an African can be the greatest person on Earth, a person who demands not pity but admiration and envy. Related Links In 1960, I had my first experience of the Olympic Games, vivid in black and white in the sitting room in Streatham. I remember the marathon, a race run over a distance that was then unthinkable for an ordinary person. And there was the victor, lithe, African, barefoot. Abebe Bikila, member of the King of Ethiopia’s bodyguard, son of a shepherd, and the best in the world. The first black African to win an Olympic gold medal: my heart rejoiced with his rejoicing, with Africa’s rejoicing. My memory of this phenomenal victory was reinforced four years on, when Bikila won the Olympic marathon in Tokyo, this time in shoes. After he had finished, he performed a series of vigorous exercises to show the world that he could have gone round the course again. I was aware, from a very early age, of the greatness of Bikila, of the greatness of Africans, of the greatness of Africa. The spell has been on me all my life. I have visited Africa again and again, sometimes to report on sport for this newspaper, on two occasions to promote The Times’s Christmas charities, on many occasions to look for wildlife. And always, it has been Africa’s greatness that has filled me and taken me back. I have walked and talked and worked with great people. I have faced a charging elephant with Perry Nyama, the coolest game scout in Zambia. I have searched for the eternally elusive Pearson’s cisticola with Aaron Mushindu of the Livingstone Museum. I have learnt about the ecology of the Luangwa Valley from Manny Mvula. I have walked among elephants with my ten-year-old son and Abraham Banda. I have visited an Aids orphanage run on a shoestring by the sheer willpower of Rose Moon. I have seen an entire village digging the foundations for a school building, a long-term project set up on their initiative to free their children from the terrifying insecurities of subsistence farming. I have seen these things and met these people because of luck, because of privilege. But the greatness of Africa is available for the world to see, and it comes most vividly in the form of sport. Sport shows us things that divide us — genius, brilliance, ambition — and things that unite us. Things such as passion and intensity and desire and hope. Sport, more vividly than anything else on Earth, brings us exceptional humans doing exceptional things. Sport also demonstrates that, no matter what continent we come from, we are all capable of caring about the same things: about the visceral excitements of sport and the unending dramas of the search for victory and excellence. I watched the first match of the 1990 football World Cup in the Hotel Bernini Bristol in Rome. I am always grateful that I wasn’t at the stadium in Milan, where I would have had to write. I could never have managed it. I was off my head with excitement: drunk and incapable on joy as the underdogs of Cameroon — the underdogs of Africa — beat the world champions, Argentina. Cameroon surfed a wave of glorious optimism as far as the quarter-finals, where they led England 2-1 in the 83rd minute. Then they conceded a penalty and Gary Lineker, lacking my sense of what was right, romantic and fitting, showed himself to be almost as cool as Perry Nyama. He scored from another penalty in extra time to end the adventure. Since then, great African footballers have played great football for the great clubs of the world. No African nation has won the World Cup yet, but football is increasingly an African game. Football has always been primarily the game of the poor, and Africa qualifies there, all right. And yes, I’ve watched the 23-a-side barefoot kickabouts, occasions that require the great African football, made from 100 plastic bags and a lot of string. Football is an expression of community, and no one understands community quite as intimately as an African. But it is in running that Africa is supreme. Better even than the great individuals, such as Haile Gebrselassie or Kenenisa Bekele, I love to see Kenyan athletes carving up the 3,000 metres steeplechase between them, an expression of nonchalant self-certainty and African community. Great achievements in sport do not make everything right. They do not make up for the wealth differences between ourselves and subsistence farming communities. They don’t eradicate Aids. They do not wipe out two centuries of conscienceless exploitation. But they do tell the world that Africa is not just about famine and civil war, exploitation and corruption. Sport is one area in which Africa can tell the world of its unambiguous greatness. Every African victory enriches me, enriches Africa, and the world. How they finished • Owen Slot’s countdown of the 25 greatest sporting Africans 25, Kalusha Bwalya (Zambia); 24, Azumah Nelson (Ghana); 23, Hassiba Boulmerka (Morocco); 22, Andy Flower (Zimbabwe); 21, Danie Craven (South Africa); 20, Jacques Kallis (South Africa); 19, Roger Milla (Cameroon); 18, Victor Matfield (South Africa); 17, Dick Tiger (Nigeria); 16, Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia); 15, Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast); 14, Joost van der Westhuizen (South Africa); 13, Maria Mutola (Mozambique); 12, Danie Gerber (South Africa); 11, Graeme Pollock (South Africa); 10, Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon); 9, Barry Richards (South Africa); 8, Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco); 7, Frik du Preez (South Africa); 6, Kip Keino (Kenya); 5, George Weah (Liberia); 4, Abebe Bikila (Ethiopia); 3, Gary Player (South Africa); 2, Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia); 1, Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia).