I beat everybody except Carl Lewis –Yusuf Alli
By NURUDEEN OBALOLA
Published: Sunday, 12 Apr 2009
Yusuf Alli, you are the meet director of the Abuja Grand Prix coming up next month. What is its significance to Nigerian athletics?
I think this is the third edition after the International Association of Athletics Federations ceded the competition to Nigeria, basically Abuja. But the Lagos State government is the title sponsor of this year‘s edition, because from next year it will move to Lagos.
The Governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola, has requested that he wants two top-class meets in the state every year and now we have an opportunity of grabbing one. The state government wants to use this opportunity to sponsor this one and from next year it will move to Lagos.
Many top athletes from across the world will come and compete to score points towards major IAAF events. I think it‘s a very good one for this country to showcase our talents and also learn from the best athletes in the world.
Last year there was this controversy about whether the Abuja event was a Grand Prix or a Permit Meet. Can you give us the true position?
You go from a Permit Meet to a Grand Prix and what we have here now is even a CAA Super Grand Prix. This year the event was upgraded to Super Grand Prix level where you can qualify for the World Championship and the Olympics. That means that countries can bring their relay teams and qualify from here for the World Championship in Berlin later in the year or the London Olympis in 2012.
So the times returned in Abuja will be used to rank relay teams…
Yes, that‘s exactly what I‘m saying. The times here will be relevant for any competition in the world.
But the event has not got to the level of the likes of the Berlin Grand Prix and others…
Well, it takes time to get to such standards and that‘s why the Lagos State Government is trying to take the meet to a higher level. We want to take the competition to such a level that people can come and earn up to $500,000 as appearance fees. I think we‘re gradually getting there.
We‘re trying to bring Usain Bolt for the May 5 event in Abuja, and if we succeed in doing that Nigeria would have taken the world by storm. We‘re in negotiation with him and he has indicated interest. The only obstacle is that he has a meet in Jamaica on May 2, but we are close to getting him to come anyway. Even if he‘s not going to run, he‘ll come here and talk to the kids and be a role model. He‘ll tell the kids how he started and his journey to the top. This will surely inspire our kids to take up athletics.
The outdoor season has just begun, what are the plans for Nigerian athletes to excel in the major competitions?
Normally, on the Athletic Federation of Nigeria calendar, the Grand Prix is the first big event. But I‘ve organised two competitions for athletes in Lagos. One was held on Friday at the stadium and the other one will be next week. We want to make sure our athletes in Lagos are ready for the Grand Prix.
You realise that right now there‘s no AFN board in place because after every Olympic year association boards are dissolved. But the secretary-general, Maria Wophill, has been doing a good job trying to put things together. I‘m sure we‘ll be OK.
Let‘s go back to your days as an active athlete. You were once the best long jumper in Africa and you had some Nigerian rivals. But there is no longer any male jumper from this country at the top. Why is this so?
I remember that at the peak of my career in 1990 I was ranked number four in the world. I think that it‘s a shame that this same country that produced people like myself, Paul Emordi and others doesn‘t have top jumpers anymore.
I think we have to go back to the grass roots and start producing athletes. I remember three years ago I did go back to start training a few jumpers. I trained Tunde Sulaiman and he jumped over eight metres. Right now I‘m training Samson Idiata, who was a high jumper before I converted him to the long jump. Within a year of jumping he has done 7.64m, 7.70m. I think by the next Olympic Games in 2012, I can assure you that, by the grace of God, the guy will be competing for a long jump medal.
But to succeed we need the government‘s support in terms of training facilities, feeding and kitting. And if the government can come out and support our programme, I think the country will do well. If the government doesn‘t support it, it will be the same old story. Because it‘s difficult for individuals to have a camp to train athletes; it takes a lot of money and time.
If the National Sports Commission can support what we‘re doing at the individual level, I believe Nigeria will rise again.
What was it in your generation that made Nigeria produce so many world-class stars like yourself, Chidi Imoh, Mary Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya, the Ezenwa brothers and so on?
What we had then was the collegiate system. Most Nigerian athletes went to America as student-athletes and the programme from December to May was that you competed every weekend. So there was no way you would not improve. It was the same thing with Blessing Okagbare.
I was coaching Blessing here before she went to the United States and I remember I told you she was going to win a medal in the long jump. You can predict how a long jump event will go once you know the distances each athlete can jump. If you can jump 6.80. 6.90 in the women‘s event, you should win a medal. If you jump 8.20, 8.30 in the men‘s event, you should get within medal range. It‘s like running 9.7, 9.8 seconds in the men‘s 100m, of course you‘ll win a medal.
So, I think except our athletes here begin to go to school and attach themselves to the right coaches in the right schools, we can‘t make much progress. We have loads of talent in this country; anywhere you go you‘ll see talented athletes. But the issue is that we don‘t have competitions every weekend that can polish their raw talent and turn them to world beaters.
We continue talking about grass roots, fine, but even at the grass-roots level there must be competitions for these athletes. Without competitions you don‘t know the strengths and weaknesses of each athlete. We have to create competitions for these young people.
How about your own progression from Nigeria to being one of the best in the world? How did it happen?
When I started jumping in Nigeria, I was doing like 6.80, then I met a coach who is late now. He trained me, then I went to school at St. Gregory‘s, Lagos, where I improved to 7.40, 7.50. But before I left Nigeria for the US, my best was 7.82. I went to the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 and the qualifying standard was 7.80.
Moscow was my first Olympic experience. In 1981, I got a scholarship to the University of Missouri as a student-athlete.
I was on a full scholarship and that year I jumped 7.99. Then the following year I started jumping beyond eight metres and that year I was ranked number 10 in the world. As an African that was a big achievement. From there I kept going, featuring at African Championships and other events. In 1983, I went to the World University Games, where I jumped 8.21. I won the gold medal at the games and broke the games record.
That record lasted for 15 years before it was broken. Being in the US helped my career a great deal because I could compete every weekend and kept improving.
From 1985 I started competing in Europe and making some money for myself and my family.
In 1989 I was still on top of my career and I broke the African record again with 8.27. I then went to the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada in 1990 where I did 8.39 to win the gold medal. That was the year I was second in the Grand Prix rankings and also ranked number four in the world. I think that was the highest point of my career. By 1992, I‘d come down from 8.30 to start doing 8.21, 8.18 and I felt it was time to quit. Although I was still the best in Africa, I thought that it was time to leave the stage.
Curiously, while you were the best long jumper in Africa, you never won a gold medal in the All-Africa Games. What was the cause of this?
I went to the All-Africa Games in Nairobi, Kenya in 1987. We had a very strong long jump team including myself and Emordi. We went one, two, three with the medals and it didn‘t matter to me if I had won. All I wanted was for the team to do well because being the team captain was a very big role. It was a very big task and I think I jumped 8.18, while Emordi did 8.19 or 8.20, just enough to beat me. But at that time it didn‘t matter to me because Nigeria was first, second and third.
It was later in my career that I realised that I had the opportunity of winning but I didn‘t win. Maybe I was too busy making sure things went well as the captain of the team. Being captain did affect me somehow, but I don‘t regret taking on that role.
It was a big distraction, but at the same time I thank God for the big honour of being Nigerian captain. I had a fulfilled career.
The standard of long jump has dropped even at the global level with nobody doing 8.90 like Carl Lewis and Mike Powell used to. What could the problem be?
You are correct about the falling standards. When I was jumping, if you did 8.20 at a major global event you‘d end up in ninth place or worse. I remember the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Carl Lewis and Larry Myricks were doing 8.65, 8.70. And at the World Championships in Japan in 1991, Lewis jumped 8.91 yet he did not win the gold medal. Powell won the gold and broke the world record.
Then if you jumped 8.70 you would not be sure of winning. Now you can win gold at the Olympics with 8.40. Honestly, I don‘t know what is wrong. It‘s a global thing and I hope the good jumpers will come around again. I just hope that Nigerian jumpers will now be the ones to propel the world.
Can you recall the kind of rivalry you had with Lewis and Powell, the two global superstars?
In my days the only jumper I didn‘t beat was Carl Lewis. I beat Powell, Myricks, all of the big guys, at one time or the other. Lewis was the best at the time and he was virtually unbeatable. We called him King Carl. If you were on the same track with Lewis, you just knew you were competing for second place. Forget the first place because it was reserved for King Carl. He had speed through being a world-class 100 and 200m runner, although his technique wasn‘t that much. His speed was a big factor and he was totally dominant. Someone like Myricks had great technique but his speed wasn‘t that much.
But Powell did famously beat him in Tokyo…
Yes, Powell beat him, but it was not a regular thing. Lewis was still the best. If you remember at the Olympics in 1992, Powell jumped 8.52 and Lewis had just one more jump to go. He asked Powell ”What do you think?” Powell said it was in God‘s and Lewis‘ hands. Lewis did 8.53 to win the gold. No doubt about it, Lewis was the king.
What was it like watching Lewis and Powell during that epic battle for the gold medal at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo?
Lewis first jumped 8.91 and we thought it was over. But Powell said ”Hell no, I have to win this one.” He was confident because he said he had done nine metres from the box – we have this box we call the magic box. He said after doing nine metres from the box he knew he was going to break the world record. He never gave up and he came for his fifth jump and did 8.95m to break the world record. That record stands till today.