Paris 2024: The Afrolympics

Last month’s 2024 $8.2 billion Paris Olympics were an exuberant celebration of the spirit of sports. The stunning opening ceremony along the river Seine saw Aya Nakamura, the sumptuous Malian-French singer influenced by Afrobeats and Caribbean zouk – who had been widely vilified by racist Gallic politicians and talking heads before the games as not really being  “French”  – steal the show with a glittering performance, spoiled only by a French military band prancing around her.

The real significance of these games, was the way they exposed the role that the Black Atlantic – the citizens of the European-led  transatlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries – has played in shaping global culture through migration. The children of Africa and its global diaspora in the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe came out to play, dominating these Olympics, as they have previous games.

These global Africans are true symbols of the globalisation of cultural identities. Athletics is the jewel in the Olympic crown, and citizens of the Black Atlantic triumphed in much of the track and field competition. Global Africans helped the United States (U.S.), Britain, Jamaica and Canada finish in the top seven nations in athletics, while Kenya took second place. America finally ended Jamaica’s 16-year dominance of the sprints.

The arrogant African-American sprinter, Noah Lyles, won the closest ever Olympic 100-metre final, before seeking, in his bronze-winning 200-metre race, to steal the thunder of Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo – who became the first African to win a sprint gold, in a continental record – by dramatically announcing that he had COVID -19. It was an emotional victory for the humble Tebogo who dedicated the victory to his recently deceased mother: the pillar behind much of his success. Lyles learned the hard way that it takes more than trash-talking to enter into the pantheon of global African Olympians like Jesse Owens and Carl  Lewis who each won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin and 1984 Los Angeles games.

Three Afro-Cubans – Jordan DÍaz Fortun (Spain), Pedro Pichardo (Portugal), and Andy DÍaz Hernández (Italy) – swept the triple jump medals. Jamaican discus-thrower, Roke Stona, won gold in an Olympic record. Uganda’s 10,000-metre runner, Joshua Cheptegei, and Ethiopian marathoner, Tamirat Tola, broke the Olympic record, as did the African-American 4×400 quartet, with Rai Benjamin (400-metre hurdles) and Quincy Hall (400 metres) also bagging individual golds. Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi stormed to victory in the 800 metres. African-American three-time 110-metre hurdles World Champion, Grant Holloway, finally won Olympic gold.

Outstanding performances among the women included Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon’s historic third consecutive Olympic gold in the 1,500 metres (in a games record), adding a silver in the 5000 metres behind Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet, with Ethiopian-Dutch athlete, Sifan Hassan – who later broke the marathon Olympic record in clinching gold – winning bronze.

Senegalese-Belgian heptathlete, Nafissatou Thiam, similarly won three consecutive Olympic golds. African American, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, broke her own 400-metre hurdles world record. 100-metre sprinter, Julien Alfred (St. Lucia), 400-metre runner, Marieldy Paulino (Dominican Republic), and triple-jumper, Thea LaFond (Dominica) all won their small Caribbean islands’ first-ever gold medals.

Harvard-educated Jamaican-American biologist, Gabby Thomas, won gold in the 200 metres, as well as in the 4 x100 and 4 x 400 relays. Kenyan-born Bahraini 3,000-metre steeplechaser, Winfred Yavi, won gold in an Olympic record. Nigerian-German shot-putter, Yemisi Ogunleye, won gold on her last throw.

Elsewhere, this was the games in which African-American Simone Biles – among the greatest Olympic gymnasts of all time, with seven gold medals – achieved redemption. After having had to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics with a very public mental breakdown, she won three gold and one silver in Paris. Algerian Kaylia Nemour won Africa’s first-ever Olympic gymnastics gold. South Africa’s Tatjana Smith won a swimming gold. America’s men and women “Dream Teams” predictably swept the basketball, with LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant memorably rolling back the years.

Professor Adebajo is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa.