SIXTEEN  years ago, I published a series of  previews on the Atlanta Olympic Games. The facts contained in the series are unchangeable and are still relevant till today, and in my approach to London 2012, I reproduce it for your delight.

“It is not for nothing that the Olympic Games are labeled as the Greatest Show on Earth and the centennial edition in Atlanta, promises to break all existing records in attendance, glitz, glamour and spectacular extravaganza.

Focus on major sports events like the Olympics is usually divided into three-Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world, but as a kick-off to these series of previews, let us start on a continental note.

Africa at the Olympic Games is a very wide subject and while I will not dwell on political aspects, attention will be paid to Africa participation and successes at the previous Games from 1896 till 1992. Since the modern Olympic Games were revived a hundred years ago, a handful of African countries, notably South Africa and Egypt were among the early participants while a majority of African countries joined the Olympic Movement on the attainment of independence in the late fifties and sixties.

It is therefore instructive to note that right from the third edition of the Games in 1908,South Africa were among the gold medal winners, Reginald Walker in the 100 metres men.

As far back as 1928, Egypt, too, had been winning Olympic gold medals, in only two disciplines, wrestling and weightlifting but since the sixties, the bulk of African gold medals has come principally from track and field athletics. Out of 48 African countries that have participated in the Olympic Games, only nine have won gold medals.

They are Kenya 13, South Africa 12, Egypt 6, Ethiopia 5, Morocco 2, and one each for Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Algeria. For the past three and half decades, Africa has been dominating the middle and long distance races and that domination maybe total in this year.

And in the sprints apart from the 1908 victory of Reginald Walker, only spectacular African performances were the Nigerian silver and bronze medal races in the Barcelona 4x100 metres relay men and women.

Before they were suspended from the Olympic Games, the South Africans produced a gold medalist in swimming in 1952, the year that Nigeria joined the Games. Joan Harrison won the women 100 metre back stroke and ever since then, no African has climbed the victory dais in Olympic swimming. And that is where majority of medals are.

By 1972 when Nigerians started watching Olympic Games LIVE (thanks to WNTV Ibadan, NBC-TV Lagos and NET (forerunners of NITEL), Some cynics thought black Africans could never win an Olympic gold in boxing until Robert Wangila of Kenya proved otherwise in Seoul ’88.

But before Wangila, six white South Africans had won Olympic gold in boxing from 1920 to 1948, just as an all-white Zimbabwe team won their country’s only gold medal in women hockey at the 1980 Olympic Games.

To the romancists, Africa’s sweetest victories so far came in 1972 when an unknown and unheralded John Akii-bua of Uganda, swept past a powerful field to win the 400 metres hurdles. The Munich Games TV Cameras ignored him on the outside lane until the final bend when the ever smiling ebony black Akii-bua surged forward and left the rest of the world panting for breath.

Eight years later, in the same event for women Nawal El Moutawakil of Morocco repeated the feat in Los Angeles and won Morocco’s first gold medal.

Today she is the only woman on the Executive committee of IAAF, the world’s governing body in athletics.

More Olympic previews keep a date.