By Timothy Kalyegira The
flagship section of the Africa Almanac.com website is this annual listing of the Top 100 Africans of the Year
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Back to Top 100 Africans of the Year 1-50
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51-70
51. MILLION WOLDE (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete.
52.
IBRAHIM HUSSEIN (KENYA)
, athletics team manager.
53. THANDIWE ("THANDIE") NEWTON (SOUTH AFRICA), actress.
54. ENEFIOK UDOBONG
(NIGERIA), track and field athlete.
55.
REUBEN SERONY KOSGEI (KENYA), track and field athlete.
56. PAUL TERGAT (KENYA), track and field athlete.
57. GETE WAMI (ETHIOPIA)
, track and field athlete.
58. HESTRIE CLOETE (SOUTH AFRICA), track and field athlete.
59.
RUTH OGBEIFO (NIGERIA), weightlifter.
60. ERIC WAINAINA (KENYA), track and field athlete.
61. GLORIA ALOZIE (NIGERIA)
, track and field athlete.
62. BERNARD LAGAT (KENYA), track and field athlete.
63.
LLEWELLYN HERBERT (SOUTH AFRICA), track and field athlete.
64. RAYMOND YATOR (KENYA), track and field athlete.
65. WILSON BIOT KIPKETER (KENYA)
, track and field athlete.
66. ASSEFA MEZGEBU (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete.
67. TESSFAYE TOLA
(ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete.
68. ALI SAIDI-SIEF (ALGERIA), track and field athlete.
69.
ALI EZZINE (MOROCCO)
, track and field athlete.
70. BRAHIM LAHAFI (MOROCCO), track and field athlete.
#51. MILLION WOLDE (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete. Olympic
champion at 5,000 metres, on September 30, in a time of 13:35.49. Wolde upset the pre-Olympic favourite Ali Saidi-Sief of Algeria. #52. IBRAHIM HUSSEIN (KENYA), team manager of the athletes at the World Junior
Athletics Championships in Santiago, Chile in October. Kenya won more medals than any country in the world, 14 in total, including seven gold medals. Teams of talented African athletes over
the years have been known to fail during international competition because they were under ineffective management. Hussein managed the Kenyan team well enough to maintain harmony
between mind and body for them to attain their striking success in Santiago. He is a former Boston Marathon champion.
#53. THANDIWE ("THANDIE") NEWTON (SOUTH AFRICA), actress. Co-star in the film Mission Impossible 2, with American actor Tom Cruise. Mission Impossible 2 was the biggest grossing film in the
United States during the summer of 2000, grossing $130 million within a week of its release on May 28.
Other for the 28 year-old Netwon roles include supporting actress in Beloved, based on American author Toni Morrison's book; supporting role opposite Nick Nolte in Jefferson in Paris, Tom Cruise in Interview With A Vampire and Tim Roth in Gridlock'd. Newton
was born and raised in Zambia, of a South African father and Zambian mother. Newton's appearance in Mission Impossible 2 demonstrated to Africans that even the star-studded sky these days
is no longer the limit. #54. ENEFIOK UDOBONG (NIGERIA), track and field athlete. The Nigerian quartet would not have won the Silver medal had it not been for the singular determination of Enefiok Udobong,
who surged in a gritty run over the home straight in the men's 4x400 metres final at the Sydney Olympic Games on September 30. Storming past first the Bahamas then Jamaica, Udobong closed in on
the United States to give Nigeria the silver medal in a new African record of 2:58.68.#55. REUBEN SERONY KOSGEI (KENYA), track and field athlete. Olympic
champion at 3,000 metres Steeplechase in 8:21.43, in Sydney, Australia, on September 29. Although Kosgei won the gold medal in the second slowest ever time at the Olympic Games, he became at 19,
the youngest ever Olympic champion at the distance. Shortly after his victory, Kosgei said modestly: "I am not surprised I won. I knew how good I was...I won the world junior
championships three years ago and I knew then that I would win the Olympic title." He was the 3,000 metres Steeplechase World Junior Champion in 1998.
#56. PAUL TERGAT (KENYA), track and field athlete. Olympic Silver medal winner in the 10,000 metres in Sydney, Australia. Tergat, the five-time World Cross Country champion was denied the
gold for the second Olympic Games running by his great Ethiopian rival Haile Gebrselassie. #57. GETE WAMI (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete. Olympic Silver
medal winner in the women's 10,000 metres in Sydney, Australia. Wami is the reigning World 10,000 metres champion and remains one of the world's top ranking long distance athletes.
#58. HESTRIE CLOETE (SOUTH AFRICA), track and field athlete. The former World champion, Cloete won Africa's only athletics field medal when she won silver behind Russia's Yelena Yelesina
in the women's High Jump event. #59. RUTH OGBEIFO (NIGERIA), weightlifter. Olympic Silver medal winner in the women's 75 kg category, in Sydney, Australia.
Apart from Cameroon's football gold medal, Ogbeifo's silver was Africa's only medal outside athletics. #60. ERIC WAINAINA (KENYA), track and field athlete. Olympic
Silver medal winner in the marathon in Sydney, Australia. Wainaina, who is based in Tokyo, Japan, won the bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. #61. GLORIA ALOZIE (NIGERIA)
, track and field athlete. Alozie won the Silver medal in the women's 100 metres Hurdles on September 30, just three weeks after her fiance, Hyginus Anugo was killed in a car accident in
Sydney. She almost considered withdrawing from the Olympic Games. It has to be borner in mind, though, that this silver medal was made possible by the absense through injury that week of the
automatic favourite, Gail Devers from the United States. #62. BERNARD LAGAT (KENYA), track and field athlete. Olympic Bronze medal winner in the now famous
1,500 metres upset race, in which his compatriot Noah Ng'eny defeated the world record holder and favourite Hicham El Guerrouj. Lagat, like Ng'eny and El Guerrouj, broke the previous Olympic
record in one of the finest 1,500 metres races in Olympic history. #63. LLEWELLYN HERBERT (SOUTH AFRICA), track and field athlete. Olympic Bronze medal winner in the
men's 400 metres Hurdles, in Sydney, Australia. His third position was important in an event usually heavily slated toward the Black Americans.
#64. RAYMOND YATOR (KENYA), track and field athlete. Yator won the 3,000 metres Steeplechase Gold medal at the World Junior athletics champoinships in Santiago, Chile, on October 21. His
winning time of 8:16.34 was more than five seconds faster than the time recorded by Kenya's Reuben Kosgei in winning the Olympic title in Sydney.
#65. WILSON BIOT KIPKETER (KENYA), track and field athlete. The Olympic silver medal winner in the 3,000 metres Steeplechase in Sydney, Australia. Boit Kipketer was the 1997 World 3,000
metres Steeplechase champion. #66. ASSEFA MEZGEBU (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete. Olympic Bronze medal winner in the men's 10,000 metres in Sydney,
Australia. #67. TESSFAYE TOLA (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete. Olympic Bronze medal winner in the men's marathon in Sydney, Australia. He remained behind
eventual winner Gezaghne Abera and runner-up Eric Wainaina for most of the closing stages of the race and never mounted a challenge for the gold medal.
#68. ALI SAIDI-SIEF (ALGERIA), track and field athlete. Olympic Silver medal winner in the men's 5,000 metres in Sydney, Australia. Saidi-Sief came to the games as the favourite to win gold,
based on his Grand Prix performances. But the Ethiopian talent had not been anticipated by the experts. He was to be beaten by Million Wolde of Ethiopia.
#69. ALI EZZINE (MOROCCO), track and field athlete. Olympic Bronze medal winner in the 3,000 metres Steeplechase, in Sydney, Australia. For Ezzine to even win a medal, in the face of the
Kenyan competition and especially for him to even beat world record holder Bernard Barmasami into fourth place, was achievement enough.
#70. BRAHIM LAHAFI (MOROCCO), track and field athlete. Olympic Bronze medal winner in the men's 5,000 metres, in Sydney, Australia.
Back to Top 100 Africans of the Year 1-50
All personalities researched by Timothy Kalyegira except:
General Baptista Joao De Matos researched by Arthur Ntengwe. Thandie Newton researched by Moses Serugo. Patrick Mboma researched by Joseph Beyanga. The complete list of the Top 100
Africans of the year will be published at the end of December. If you would like to nominate the names of people you think have been omitted from the list, please send your entries to:
letters@africaalmanac.comIn particular, the Africa Almanac website is interested in listing the names of the
South African military commanders whose rescue missions in February saved the lives of dozens of Mozambicans stranded by the floods that hit their country. |
