Best of the best | Uganda's top ten male athletes

Athletics remains Uganda’s most successful sport. This dominance has had male athletes take the lion’s share of the limelight.

But even in this race of male prominence, some stars stand out because of bigger achievements. New Vision Sports looks at Uganda’s top ten male athletes.

John Akii-Bua

He holds the special position of being Uganda’s first Olympic champion. Akii-Bua not only won gold in the 400m hurdles at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but he also did it with distinction. He struck gold with a 47.82 world record!

There was more to Akii-Bua’s feat. He was the first man to run the low hurdles under 48 seconds.  Many had predicted a second Olympic gold for the police officer but Uganda with many other African countries boycotted the Montreal 1976 Olympics. He won gold at the 1973 All Africa Games in Lagos and silver at the same games in 1978 in Algeria.

Stephen Kiprotich

It wasn’t until 40 years later that Uganda won a second Olympic gold. Stephen Kiprotich was the man who put the country back in golden glory by winning the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics.

To prove that this was no fluke, Kiprotich won gold at the Moscow World Championships the following year. He remains the only Ugandan to have won gold both at the Olympics and the World Championships.

Joshua Cheptegei

Undoubtedly one of the world’s fastest-rising stars. Despite a disastrous  2017 World Cross-Country on home soil in Kampala, Joshua Cheptegei quickly picked up the pieces and is now set to become one of the greatest athletes ever.

He is a World Cross-Country, World 10,000m, World Junior 10,000m, World University Cross-Country, Africa 10,000m and Diamond League 5000m champion. This is on top of being a world 5km, 10km and 15km record holder. Should he win Olympic gold, he will be a contender for Uganda’s greatest athlete ever.

Jacob Kiplimo

He will make 20 this year, but has already achieved a lot. Jacob Kiplimo made history in 2017 when he became the first Ugandan to win the World Cross-Country Championship.

At the next edition of the world meet, he was only beaten to senior gold by his team-mate Cheptegei. With a junior gold and seniors silver, he is Uganda’s most successful runner in the cross-country. Before all this, he also had a world U-20 10,000m bronze to his name.

Davis Kamoga

Kamoga surprised many when he won bronze in the 400m at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Running alongside legend Michael Johnson and other big names like Roger Black and Alvin Harrison, Kamoga finished third to win Uganda’s first Olympic medal in 16 years at the time.

To prove that he was one of the best quarter milers of that era, Kamoga returned the following year to win silver at the Athens World Championships. This time, only Johnson could beat the Ugandan as he set a new national record of 44.37 seconds that still stands.

Moses Kipsiro

He is of Uganda’s biggest achievers outside the Olympics. The closest he came to an Olympic medal was fourth place in the 5000m at the 2008 Beijing Games in China.

But elsewhere, he had a lot to show. He won gold in the 5000m and 10000m at the New Delhi Commonwealth Games in India. He returned four years later to win gold again in the 10,000m in Glasgow, Scotland. He was also a multiple African Games gold medalist.

Kipsiro won World Cross-Country silver in 2009 and bronze the following year. In 2007, he had won a 5000m bronze at the Osaka World Championships in Japan.

Solomon Munyo Mutai

Solomon Munyo Mutayi has displayed steady progression in the marathon on the big stage. He first got into the headlines at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, when he finished fourth.

At the Beijing World Championships the following year, he proved good enough for bronze. He then won silver at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Patrick Etolu

This list would be incomplete without the towering Etolu. The Primary School teacher from Soroti region stands out as the first Ugandan to win a medal at a major international event.  This was a silver at the 1954 Commonwealth Games.

What further distinguishes Etolu is the event in which he starred - the high jump. The high jump is, like many other field events, considered very technical and has over the years been dominated by the more developed Europe and US.

Two years later at a competition in Bombay, India, Etolu cleared 2.03m, setting a national record that stood for 43 years.  He was the same year also part of Uganda’s maiden Olympic team, where he finished 12th with a 1.96m clearance. At the following Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, he finished fourth.

Julius Achon

As a 17-year-old, Julius Achon shot into the limelight as Uganda’s first world athletics champion. This was after he won the 1500m at the 1994 World Junior Championships in Lisbon, Portugal. The following year, he won bronze at the 1995 All Africa Games in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Scholarship offers then came from many US colleges. He eventually chose George Mason University, where in 1996, he set a National Collegiate Athletics Association 800m record of 1:44.55. He represented Uganda at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. Achon is today a Member of Parliament (Otuke County).

Justin Arop

Like Etolu, Arop is one of the few Ugandan athletes who have stood out in the field events. For many years, this section of the sport was considered dead in Uganda because of poor activity. Arop, in javelin throwing, was however one of those lights that kept burning.

He was twice an African champion and represented Uganda at a record three Olympics (1980,1984 and 1988) and also the 1987 Rome World Championships in Italy.