The Sunday News
Lovemore Dube
THIS past week athletics and Zimbabwe were both left poorer with the news of Artwell Mandaza’s death in Chiweshe.
He died at the age of 73 after years of deteriorating health. Mandaza was unfortunate to be born on the wrong side of 1980. Or that at Independence at the age of 33, he was already too old to resuscitate his career and run against the world.
He died at probably athletics’ lowest ebb when we went to the World Championships and All-Africa Games and returned clutching thin air with medals having eluded the country. His passing on was at a time the sport was crying out for a new generation of heroes on the track and road.
Also at a time a new administration was needed to infuse new ideas to a sport where the guys we have seen in the last 20 years, continue to preside over a discipline that was once ranked second to football.
It is ironic that today only administrators, athletes, coaches and parents of competitors are the spectators at events. Juxtapose 1969 into the puzzle with Mandaza among the headline acts before a crowd of over 1 500 fans. Only Caps United, Dynamos and Highlanders are guaranteed a crowd bigger than that in Zimbabwe sport with the majority of the sports codes attracting just dozens of fans.
On 28 June 1969, Mandaza, then a Mngula sprinter broke the national 100m record, becoming the fastest man ever in the country, trailblazing past Springbok Sakkie van Zyl to clock 10,3 seconds to eclipse Johan du Preez’s six-year-old Rhodesian record of 10,5 sec.
Less than an hour later the lean, well-muscled Mandaza — the man they nicknamed the “Mangula Meteor” — again thrilled a 1 500 crowd by snatching another national record from Du Preez. This was the gruelling 400 metres in which Mandaza overcame the handicap of drawing the outside lane. After a rocketing start, he paced himself evenly and burst into a powerful sprint from the 200 metres mark to record 47,0 sec and beat Du Preez’s all-comers record of 47,5 sec. In that pulsating race, Mandaza held off Springboks Freddie Poggenpoel (47,5) and Dicky Broberg (47,8).
A report in the Rhodesia Herald said: “It was the flashing Mandaza who stole the show. He broke into a huge grin as he hit the tape in the 100 metres and congratulations were showered on him. He got one of his rare good starts and shaded Van Zyl from start to finish.”
It was an astonishing performance from Mandaza, who had suffered a hip injury early in the 1969 season, keeping him off the track for two months. His record runs came after only four weeks’ training and underlined his immense potential.
A major factor in his record runs was a new starting style. Three weeks previously, he had been disqualified from a 100-metre race for breaking. His front block was too close to the start-line and he was toppling forward on the “set” position. When he moved the block back he was steadier and not so cramped and certainly surprised the powerful Van Zyl, second only to Paul Nash at this time in South African athletics history.
“What a great start,” said the startled 200 lb. Springbok. “Mandaza jumped into a three-yard lead from the start and I just couldn’t catch him.”
Mandaza’s time of 10,3 sec. put him joint seventh on the all-time ranking list for the African continent. The only men to have run faster were Paul Nash (10,0 sec), Ravelomanatsoa of Madagascar (10,1 sec), Judge Jefferies and Sakkie van Zyl, both of South Africa, Ahey of Ghana and Seye of Senegal (all 10,2 sec).
It put him alongside such stars as former Empire Games champion, Serephino Antao (Kenya), Mane (Senegal), Altoy (Ghana), Ejoke (Nigeria) and Kone (Ivory Coast). Three of South Africa’s most famous sprinters — Gordon Day, Harold Bromberg and John Luxon — never bettered 10,4 sec.
Mandaza’s time also placed him joint eleventh in the world for 1969 over 100 metres, while his 400 metres time was also remarkable as he had only taken to the event seriously that season, when he clocked 47,7 seconds in his first outing.
The record double by Mandaza topped one of the finest meetings ever staged in Rhodesia. Eight national all-comers marks and five national domestic records toppled; while Broberg won the 800 metres un-extended, just 0,6 sec outside Terry Sullivan’s long-standing all-comers mark.
There was to be more glory for Mandaza before the end of the year. On 20 December 1969, again at the Salisbury Police track, he competed for a Mashonaland invitation team against Stellenbosch University, and cracked on the pace to win the 100 metres in a startling 10 seconds dead — just 0,1 sec outside the world record held by American Jim Hines. But Mandaza’s run was officially classified as “wind assisted” and therefore not recognised as a record.
The year 1970, however, was the most momentous for the well-liked Mandaza, a real gentleman of the track. It was in May that year that he astonished everyone with a world record-equaling 9,9 sec 100 metres in a semi-final at the South African Bantu championships at Welkom. The record was disallowed because of a following wind of 4,27 metres per second (2m is the maximum allowed), but after clocking 10,3 sec in an earlier heat he won the final in a legal 10,2 sec — the fastest time ever by a Rhodesian.
Although not recognised, Mandaza’s 9,9 sec did make him the fastest man in the world that year, along with Cuban Pablo Montes. The Rhodesian’s legal best of 10,2 sec put him in joint eleventh in the world for 1970.
Mandaza will also long remember the 1970 Chamber of Mines championships at Gath’s Mine, Mashaba. He competed in six events and won them all, breaking four records. The crowd gave him the time-honoured Matabele salute of “Mandaza bayethe . . . see our hands are raised,” which the athlete says was the greatest honour ever bestowed on him.
For his dazzling efforts, Mandaza was chosen as the nation’s Sportsman of the Year for 1970. It was on 9 October at the annual Sportswriters’ Association banquet in the Old Meikles dining-room, that guest of honour, Owen Williams, presented Mandaza with the John Hopley Memorial Trophy to make him the first African to be honoured as the country’s supreme sportsman.
Mandaza, the first black African to gain a place among the five finalists, beamed with delight as he said simply to the 230 specially invited guests: “I hope you will be happy with me tonight.”
He was an instant hero at Mangura Mine, 120 miles from Harare. He and his coach, Ken Walker, travelled home by car after the event, arriving at 1.00am. Several well-wishers had stayed up all night to greet him and the next day he was so besieged that he could not even get to his cashier’s job at the mine. Instead of sore feet he had sore wrists from shaking hands while singing, clapping women and cheering youngsters followed him around all day to pay homage.
Not only had he gained world recognition with his wind-assisted 9,9 sec sprint but Mandaza was the undisputed athlete of the year, setting new national best times for the 100 metres (10,2 sec) and the 400 metres (46,8 sec) and equalling the 200 metres mark (20,9 sec).
Born at Mazowe on 4 January 1946, Mandaza did not take to serious athletics until the age of 20 when Dave Klinker was his first coach at Mangura. In his first year he won the Rhodesian 100 yards title in the slow time of 10,3 sec (equivalent of 11,2 sec for 100 metres), though his real talent began to emerge during the following year when he kept the 100 yards title (10,0 sec) and recorded the second fastest time ever in the country for 400 metres hurdles, his time of 55,3 sec being second only to Gerald Brown’s 54,3 sec achieved in 1952. Mandaza also won the 100 yards (9,8 sec) and the 220 yards hurdles (24,2 sec) at the South African Bantu championships.
In 1971, Mandaza travelled to West Germany for six weeks for a special coaching course and in 1972 he was the only Rhodesian athlete to reach the Olympic qualifying mark for the Munich Games of 10,2 sec for the 100 metres and 20,9 sec for the 200 metres. He was naturally the top nomination for Rhodesia’s track and field team for Munich and that year equalled Sakkie van Zyl’s all-comers 200 metres mark of 20,8 sec at Mangura.
It was thought that an inflamed Achilles tendon might keep him out of the Olympic team, but the leg was forcibly immobilised in plaster for six weeks, and he took his place on the plane to Munich.
It was to prove an ill-fated trip, with political blackmail ensuring that Rhodesia was excluded from the Games on the eve of competition after a vote by the International Olympic Committee. It was heartbreak for the highly trained athletes and other sportsmen from the Rhodesian contingent who were forced to sit in the stands and watch the world’s greatest sports spectacular.
Injury problems now began to beset Mandaza and in 1973 he was in a plaster for eleven weeks when he tore the Achilles tendon in his left heel. It was thought that this might end his career.
However, with disciplined determination he set out on the return trail in 1974 at the age of twenty-eight. He would pound across the mine dumps and put in two sessions daily of an hour-and-a-half. Ray Batchelor, then the Mangura coach, remarked: “For an athlete whom people were saying would never run again, his pure dedication has brought about an almost miraculous recovery.”
Mandaza continued to compete at all meetings and even in 1980 at the age of 34 he could be seen regularly in such events as the 200 metres, 400 metres and long jump. His times and distances were fading, but Mandaza remained a major force in Zimbabwean athletics as he dedicated himself to training and coaching the next crop of the country’s young stars. Mandaza reached remarkable heights during the years between 1970-80 when Rhodesian sportsmen were outcasts from the world, and track and field in this country plunged to an all-time low. That showed the mettle of the man. Had he been emerging today, he may have become a world beater. Who knows?
National championships
100 m — 1966, 1967, 1971, 1972.
400 m — 1969.
200 m hurdles — 1966, 1967.
400 m hurdles — 1967.
National records
100 m — 10, 3 sec in 1969.
200 m — 20,8 sec in 1972 (also equalled all-comers).
400 m — 46,8 sec in 1970 (broken by Adon Treva in 1972 with 46, 2 sec).
400 m hurdles — 52,18 sec in 1976.
World rankings
Six occasions Mandaza has been ranked among the world’s top 100:
1969 — 100 m in 10,3 sec (joint 44th).
1970 — 100 m in 10,2 sec (joint 11th); 200m in 20,9 sec (joint 78th).
1971 — 100 m in 10,3 sec (joint 49th); 200m in 20,9 sec (joint 78th).
1972 — 200 m in 20,8 sec (joint 66th).
