Artwell Mandaza

By Tapfuma Machakaire

Racing with a horse is the last thing a normal human being can contemplate, but in 1984, some “crazy” sports administrator in Zimbabwe came up with that weird idea to raise funds for the nation’s Olympics team.

The event was conceptualised with full confidence that the man who was rated as one of the fastest sprinters in the world, Artwell Mandaza, would put up a good show, and that he did. For 60 metres he went neck to neck with one of the top-rated race horses at Borrowdale racecourse in the capital city Harare.

Sadly, Mandaza the athlete who raised the flag of the nation so high, at one time becoming the fastest sprinter in the world, died a poor and disappointed man.

Born on 4 January 1946, Mandaza started his athletics career aged 20 while at Mangula Mine. He was working as a cashier at the mine when he joined the athletics club where he was coached by Dave Klinker.

On 28 June 1969, he won a 100 metre race in 10.3 secondsat the Salisbury Police cinder-track to become the fastest man in Rhodesian athletics history. He had beat the record of 10.5 seconds set by white Rhodesian, Johan du Preez’s in 1963. On the same day, he also broke another Rhodesian record in the 400 metres category.

In May 1970 Mandaza won a 100-metre race in a record time of 9.9 seconds in a semi-final at the South African Bantu championships at Welkom. He came short of the world record of 9.95 seconds set by  Jim Hines of the United States of America in 1968. Technically, the record did not count because of wind assistance of 4, 27 metres per second. The maximum wind assistance acceptable on track sprints is 2 metres per second. At that time, Mandaza was rated number eleven among the world’s fastest sprinters.

Although not recognised, Mandaza’s 9, 9 seconds did make him the fastest man in the world that year, along with Cuban Pablo Montes.

In 1970, Mandaza competed in the Chamber of Mines championships at Gath’s Mine, Mashaba where he broke four records and won all six events he participated in.

In October 1970 Manadaza became the first black person in Southern Rhodesia to be crowned Sportsman of the Year. Because of his outstanding performance, the colonial regime could not find an excuse to deny him the honour.

In 1972 Mandaza clocked 10, 2 sec. for the 100 metres and 20, 9 sec. for the 200 metres and became the only Rhodesian athlete to reach the Olympic qualifying mark for the Munich Games.

He travelled to Munich but Rhodesia, which was under sanctions, was excluded from the Games on the eve of the competition after a vote by the International Olympic Committee. The Rhodesian delegation had to watch the sports from the terraces and Mandaza never got a chance to compete in the Olympic Games.

In 1971, Mandaza attended a special six-week athletics coaching course in West Germany.

As Zimbabwe was preparing for the 1984 Olympic Games, Mandaza agreed to take part in the fund raising event to support the team. He was to race against one of the top-rated race horses at Borrowdale Park race course in Harare.
He shocked the world and everyone present as he raced for 60 meters with the horse.

After retiring Mandaza coached the 1984 and 1988 Zimbabwe Olympics teams.

Commenting on Mandaza’s sporting career, one sports analyst said, “He was a typical sports man who inspired a lot of youths in pre and post independent Zimbabwe. His name was a talk of every young athlete at schools and social clubs.”

In 2014 Mandaza suffered a stroke that incapacitated him for almost two years.  He died at Howard Mission Hospital on 21 October in 2019 and was laid to rest in his rural home at Nzvimbo village in Chiweshe, Mashonaland Central province. He was 73.

It was reported that at the time of his death, Mandaza had nothing to show for his extraordinary achievements as a world renowned athlete and a coach in the later years of his life. The Sports and Recreation Commission described him as one of Zimbabwe’s greatest Sports persons of all time.

“It is with a deep sense of sadness and sorrow that we have received the news of the passing on of one of our greatest athletes ever to emerge from our beloved country Artwell Mandaza,” said a spokesperson for the SRC.

In 2005 Manadaza’s name was among the first on the list of the Zimbabwe National Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 alongside other sports legends like George the “Mastermind” Shaya, Nick Price and Dave Houghton.

Although Mandaza won numerous competitions across the world, he had little to show for it amid allegations that sports administrators stole the prize monies that he won.

In an interview with The Sunday Mail, Mandaza said that people had the misconception that he had spent his fortune recklessly and yet the truth is that he had received little from victories in athletics participation for Rhodesia:

“I am now being ridiculed for being a former champion. Ane chii manje iye akamhanya kudaro (what does he have given his past achievements?) people ask sarcastically. People think I blew the money I earned as an athlete yet the truth is that we competed for peanuts. I participated and won numerous international races in Germany and South Africa but I only got a pat on the back. The white administrators back then, took all the prize monies.”

Mandaza went on to allege that his medals where collected by the then Minister of Sports Youth and Recreation Joice Mujuru in 1980 who said she was going to show them to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. He never got them back.

Daily News reporter Farai Machamire who intefrviewed Mandaza only released the story a day after his death.

“He told me how he lost his medals to a Sports Minister Joice Mujuru in 1980. “I promised Mandaza I would not write the story of his greatest pain as he feared reprisal.”

Machamire said he tried in vain to get a comment from Mai Mujuru and to date she has never spoken on the allegations.

Mandaza’s wife passed away in 2015