HISTORY has just been made in the annals of Tanzanian athletics with Tanzania Prisons Service officer Alphonce Felix Simbu winning the gold medal in what has been described as the first photo finish at a major championship of the kind.

He edged out a German athlete in a dramatic race to the line to give our country its maiden world title, according to a field report on that event at Tokyo’s National Stadium. This win was more than a major sporting break our country needed but also underlines the sort of potential that reached a peak in the early 1970s, stagnated for more than a decade and then petered out at the start of this century.

There was a time we could hardly bring up a squad of even as few as ten athletes for track and field events put together. However, there was always a good athlete somewhere in the background winning medals in this or that championship or open event, epigones of Commonwealth record breaker and Olympic Games silver medallist Filbert Bayi.

Simbu himself expressed little more than a sigh of relief on his achievement, as the win was not something he was sure of at the start – only that it was possible. He said that, even with the last-gasp hurtling at the tape, he did not know if he had won – save that, when he saw the video screens and was on the top of the results list, he felt relieved.

Simbu also instantly realised that he had made history at the Tokyo International Association of Athletics Federation annual championships, arguably the most coveted athletics event just behind the quadrennial Olympic Games.

So there is no doubt that Simbu has made history as the first Tanzanian gold medallist at a world championships. It must meanwhile be admitted that many of us had ruled out that we would have such potential.

Bayi’s 1980 silver medal was partly linked with the United States’ boycott of the Games on account of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan something like a year earlier alongside a number of its allies. This somewhat constrained the level of competition

It all means that the profile of our athletics is rising and the feat by Simbu will be an inspiration for others to make enhanced efforts.It would further be worth focusing on having boarding schools with an athletics bent so that the nutritional levels are consonant with the effort required in making it in all manner of sports.