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John Stephen Akhwari is a former longdistance runner from Tanzania who specialized mainly in marathons. His most notable performance took place at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, where, like many other athletes, he had to contend with the extreme conditions of heat and altitude. At kilometer 19, he fell after a collision with other runners. Despite a shoulder injury and the need to bandage his right leg, he fought his way to the finish. There he was the last runner to finish in 57th place with a time of 3:25:17 hours, over an hour behind the winner Mamo Wolde and almost twenty minutes behind the penultimate runner. When documentary filmmaker Bud Greenspan asked him why he hadn't given up, he replied with the famous words: "My country didn't send me 5,000 miles to start, but to finish."

This race made Akhwari a legend.
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