One of the first memories of his official sprinting life is the egg and spoon race at St Andrew’s Primary School. He found it difficult to keep his eye on the egg and run at the same time. Running was the easy part – it came naturally. Keeping the egg on the spoon required different skills altogether. Unofficially he had been running away from trouble since he was a boy. Life was tough in the township; you always had to be on guard.
Frankie Fredericks is an unlikely hero. He is too serious. Too aware of the responsibility that his success has brought him. A private and humble man, it’s ironic that he spent most of his adult athletics career training in America. He is the least Hollywood-like character you could ever meet.
It’s easy to picture the little boy dressed in the white shorts and T-shirts of his house team, determination on his face as he concentrates to keep the egg on the spoon and run. His entire life has been an effort to keep his eye on the ball. Not to get swept away by fame and fortune, not be seduced by attractive offers and easy ways out.
When Frankie Fredericks won Silver at the World Championships in 1991, he became an icon for national independence. Within two years of Namibia gaining independence from South Africa and being re-admitted to international sports competitions, he had become not only the first previously disadvantaged, but also the first Namibian ever to win a medal at the Olympic Games.
When he ran his victory lap with the new Namibian flag raised above his head, every single person in Namibia believed that all would be well in the nation-building years ahead.
Of course it was significant. Of course Frank personified a new era where everything was possible and anything could happen.
What the world did not understand, however, was that Frank didn’t run just because he could. He didn’t run because he wanted to break world records or find fame.
He ran because it was his lifeline to the future. He ran because it was his ticket out. So that he would earn a bursary for an education, find a job, relieve his mother from poverty and change his family’s personal history.
That he ended up changing the history of our country was a brilliant bonus.
Frank’s mother, Riekie Fredericks, split with his father when Frank was an infant. As a single mother she raised her only child alone in Katutura, which was a tough township in those days. Daniel Tjongarero, a family friend who had been a mentor to Frank all his life, described Katutura in those days as a ‘ghetto’ – ‘a terrible place to live’. Riekie worked several jobs to earn enough money to give her son a better life. In spite of difficulties, she managed to provide him with the necessary moral, spiritual and emotional foundation to handle the expectations of an entire nation with honour and dignity.
“Whenever I was unsure about a decision I had to make in my life, I asked myself if I would be proud to tell my mother about it or not, and then I knew what do,” says Frank. “The most fulfilling part of my career was to lift my mother out of poverty.”
This measure of his loyalty reached far beyond the family. A national ambassador for peace, he never lost sight of the bigger picture. “I had a young nation looking up to me. I had to live up to it. I have never been drunk and never smoked in my life,” he adds.
The road to such acclaim hardly runs smoothly. As a young man in high school at Concordia College, when the other boys were going about being teenagers, he trod the track. Before school, after school and in between study breaks, he trained.
“I had to make many sacrifices and always set goals that I was determined to achieve. I didn’t have any funds for university, so I had to make the best of running. It was my trump card.”
In his final year at Concordia he was the South African schools champion in both the 100 and the 200 metres.
By the time he finished school, several international universities were falling over their feet to enrol him, but Frank accepted an offer to work in a management-training programme for Rössing Uranium Mine.
He spent the spring of 1987 working in the coastal town of Swakopmund, where he continued to train. In the autumn of 1987, he enrolled at Brigham Young University in Utah, financed by a track scholarship and by Rössing. He graduated with a computer-science degree after four years and, in 1994, added an MBA.
The respect and trust he had earned from the international athletics fraternity by then made him an obvious candidate for the International Olympic Committee that he was voted onto in 2004.
“I always had people coming to me for advice,” Frank explains. “They often asked me for guidance in matters such as financial planning, what books to read, agents, competitions, and so on. I think they sensed that I was trustworthy.”
Last year Frank was voted president of the IOC Athletics Commission and IOC Executive Board, the very heart of the Olympic movement, where he is one of only 15 members.
Back at home the Frank Fredericks Foundation continues to invest in the sporting potential of young Namibians. “Someone did it for me, so now it is my turn. The objective of the Frank Fredericks Foundation is to provide funding for education, so that children can realise their full potential in sport, and not have to worry about who will be paying for their schooling.”
“We would also like to give all Namibians equal opportunities. There are opportunities out there, which children might have to work hard for, but they will be rewarded. There are many things I’m thankful for. I’ve been blessed, but I also had to work very hard for those opportunities. This is something the new generation seems to lack. Parents spoil their children, so they never learn to work for something. We need to get these children out of the house and onto the sports fields.”
Frank’s come a long way from the egg-and-spoon-race days. He managed to emerge from a trying but brilliant athletics career with his integrity intact.
“The biggest challenge of my career was probably not to even think of using drugs. When you come second so many times and people come to you with all these magical solutions, you could easily be persuaded. After my career took off, I also received very nice offers from people who wanted me to change my nationality. I could never do that. Namibia is the most beautiful country in the world and the only place I call home. My representing Namibia made millions of people go look where our country is in the world. This is who I am and how people will remember me.”
International achievements In 1991, the year after Namibia became independent, Frank won a Silver Medal in the 200 metres at the World Championships, behind Michael Johnson, and came fifth in the 100 metres, setting a new African record of 9.95 seconds.
The following year, at the Barcelona 1992 Summer Olympics, Frank became Namibia's first Olympic medallist when he finished second in both the 100 metres and the 200 metres.
In 1993, in Stuttgart, he became the nation's first World Champion, winning the 200 metres. This victory marked a highlight in his career. “I think it was at this point that I realised that no matter where we come from or who we are, when we’re standing on that line, we’re all equal,” he says.
In the 1994 Commonwealth Games, he won Gold in the 200 metres and Bronze in the 100 metres.
In the 1996 Summer Olympics, Frank reached both the 100- and the 200-metre finals, and again finished second in both. In the 100 metres, he was beaten by Donovan Bailey, who set a new world record, and in the 200 metres he was beaten by Michael Johnson, who also set a new world record. At the time, Frank's second-place run was the third-fastest run in history, beaten only by Johnson, who is still the African Record Holder.
In the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Frank won Silver again in the 100 metres.
Suffering from injuries, he had to withdraw from the 1999 and 2001 World Championships and the 2000 Summer Olympics.
In the 2002 Common Wealth Games in Manchester, he won Gold in 200 metres and in 2003, at the inaugural Afro-Asian Games, the 200 metres. In the 200 metres final at the 2004 Summer Olympics, he finished fourth.
After the end of the 2004 outdoor season, Frank retired from competition.
