The remaining male athlete, John Akii-Bua entered the 400m hurdles. He had previously failed to qualify for the 1968 Games in the shorter distance hurdles. He finished his heat in first place before repeating the feat in his semi-final, beating his time in his heat by more than a second. In the final of the event, Akii-Bua was drawn in lane one, generally considered the most difficult draw. He went on to win the race and set a new world record time for the event of 47.82 seconds, the first runner in history in the 400m hurdles to record a time under 48 seconds. His victory also made him the first Ugandan athlete to win an Olympic gold medal and the first African athlete to win a gold medal in an event shorter than 800m.