South African heroes are too often forgotten

A day and a month that should have been celebrated with much fanfare, if only to remind ourselves that we have it in us to conquer the world, came and went sans any noise.

Not that Josiah Thugwane was bothered. After all, even he was not aware that Tuesday, August 4 marked the 30th anniversary of his remarkable victory at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The first Black South African to win an Olympic marathon gold medal.

“I knew it was sometime in August, but I honestly don’t remember the exact day,” Thugwane tells me on the day, August 4, when Sunday World contacted him.

“I am not feeling anything today. It is just a normal day. I am at home in Bronkhorstspruit just watching television now.”

That’s how our heroes get forgotten. That’s how historic events get lost.

And we wonder why the young ones look to heroes from other parts of the world. But, Atlanta ’96 will always hold special memories for many a South African.

Thugwane’s marathon victory should have been a catalyst for the development of many other road running giants in South Africa. But instead, he is not even a footnote but a forgotten man whose talents have gone to waste.

Though Thugwane trained youngsters and received some support to do so for a while after his victory and upon his retirement, he is seemingly no longer of any use to the sport.

Occasionally he gets invited to some races. The Loskop Dam Ultra Marathon in Mpumalanga used him for a while to hand out prizes or appear as a guest like at this year’s Sanlam Cape Town Marathon. But on the whole, the man who won gold for his country no longer matters.

“Such is life, I am not crying about it, it was our time then but now things are different. But yes I had hoped to see that win inspire the country to do great things in the marathons, sadly that’s not the case,” he said.

Back then, he was just delighted at the opportunity to run against international competition.

“Remember, we were on the outside for a long time, and I wanted to thank Tata Nelson Mandela for giving us a chance to compete against the world.”

Thugwane also wanted to use the Olympic Games to improve his life’s lot.

“I did not know anything about the Olympics but winning it improved my situation. I’d left behind my wife and kids, one of them was just three months old, so I went there to win for them.

We had been promised 150k if we won gold. It was a lot of money, and I knew it could help take me out of the shack I lived in and to move into a house for my wife and family. So, yes, I was very excited to win. After winning the marathon, the mining company I worked for at that time rewarded me by buying me a house, and I used that R150 000 to buy furniture for the house.”

The country might have forgotten his marathon victory at Atlanta ’96 and he himself might not recall the exact day it happened, but Josiah Thugwane’s life changed for the better thanks to that win, and that is something he will never forget.

If only South Africa used such stories to inspire the next generation of runners instead of letting such historic anniversaries go by unnoticed.