Abebe Bikila

Abebe Bikila (born August 7, 1932, Jato, Ethiopia—died October 25, 1973, Addis Ababa) was a marathon runner from Ethiopia who won a gold medal and set a world record while running barefoot at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. He then bested his own record at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. Bikila was the first athlete to win two Olympic marathons, and he was the first athlete to win an Olympic gold medal for Ethiopia.

The son of a shepherd, Bikila was born in the rural village of Jato and moved to Addis Ababa as a teen. A member of the emperor Haile Selassie’s imperial bodyguards, he rose to the rank of captain in the palace guard. He began running at age 24.

Bikila was little known outside Ethiopia when he entered the 1960 Olympics and ran the marathon, barefoot, on the cobblestones of the Appian Way. Tied for the lead for much of the race, he broke ahead in the last kilometer and crossed the finish line at the Arch of Constantine in 2 hours 15 minutes 16.2 seconds. Four years later he underwent an appendectomy 40 days before the Tokyo Olympics. Nevertheless, he won a second gold medal, running the marathon—this time wearing shoes—in 2 hours 12 minutes 11.2 seconds.

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He entered the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City but was forced to drop out of the marathon with a broken leg after 16 km (10 miles). An automobile accident in 1969 left Bikila paralyzed from the neck down . He was eventually able to regain the use of his hands, however, and he participated in other sports, including table tennis and archery. In 1970 Bikila competed in the archery event at the Stoke Mandeville Games in London, a precursor to the Paralympic Games, and he won a cross-country sleigh-riding event for disabled athletes in Norway the following year. The Bikila Award, named in his honor, was established in 2013 to recognize the achievements of Ethiopian students, professionals, and volunteers around the world.