The marathon runner will always be remembered for running the gruelling race in Rome barefoot
The Olympic Games are often a platform for athletes to introduce themselves to the world in the best way possible – by winning. The 1960 Games, staged in the Eternal City of Rome, was no different.
Swimmer Christina von Saltza, who was just 16 years old, went home with four medals: three gold and one silver. Another American teenager, Cassius Clay, won gold in the light-heavyweight boxing division to announce himself to the world. He would later be known as Muhammad Ali.
But the one highlight that towers above the rest is that of Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila crossing the finish line barefoot to become the first black person from the African continent to win a Games gold medal.
Bikila also became the first Ethiopian to clinch first place at the Olympics with his historic run, setting a world record in the process as he completed the race in two hours, 15 minutes and 16 seconds. He shaved off a mere 0.8 seconds from the previous mark, which had been set by Russia’s Sergei Popov.
The Ethiopian also shattered the Olympic record for the marathon, then belonging to the Czech Republic’s Emil Zátopek, by more than seven minutes. Through his win in Rome, Bikila forever altered long-distance running.
Abebe who?
Born in the village of Jato, near the town of Mendida in Ethiopia, Bikila was the son of a shepherd. As a teenager, he moved to his home country’s capital, Addis Ababa. Despite displaying a natural talent, his parents scoffed at his ambitions to conquer athletics.
Before rewriting the history books in Rome, Bikila had risen through the ranks of his country’s armed forces to become a shambel (captain) and was serving in the royal guard during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. He had only run two official marathons.
Unlike Zátopek and Popov, as well as Frenchman Alain Mimoun (who was the defending champion in Rome) and 1956 silver medallist Franjo Mihalić, Bikila was an unknown entity. After all, he had won his first official marathon just weeks before the Olympics kicked off in August 1960.
Only his compatriots were aware of who he was, especially after he had beaten Ethiopia’s premier long-distance runner at the time, Wami Biratu, in one of the pre-Games races of that year – the Armed Forces Championship.
Biratu did not have the opportunity to try to avenge his defeat to the then 28-year-old Bikila after falling ill in the build-up to the Games and being forced to miss the event. But Bikila flew his country’s flag high with the memorable run he executed on a hot and sticky evening in Rome.
A new chapter
The race had started in the late afternoon because of the extremely warm weather in the host city. In the cooler conditions that prevailed because of the late start, a number of participants rapidly accelerated from the starting line.
However, their legs soon grew weary and their pace decreased. Only two runners maintained a measured speed to the end of the race: Bikila and Moroccan Rhadi Ben Abdesselam.
Ironically, the former pulled away from the man who had kept him company for more than 40km after the pair of pacesetters had passed the Obelisk of Axum monument, which the Italians had stolen in 1937 after invading Ethiopia while under the leadership of Benito Mussolini and his fascist regime.
Bikila broke ahead of Ben Abdesselam in the final kilometre and famously crossed the finishing line first at the Arch of Constantine sans shoes.
On why he had chosen to forgo running shoes in the gruelling race, which featured cobblestone on certain stretches, Bikila said: “I wanted the world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism.”
In reality, Bikila had chosen to run barefoot because he could not find any comfortable shoes in the lead-up to the Games. Those he had tried were too tight on his feet. So he and his Swedish coach, Onni Niskanen, decided that he and teammate Abebe Wakjira would run with bare feet – which is how they had been training in any case.
Upon victory in Italy, Bikila also paid homage to his ill Ethiopian predecessor in the marathon, Biratu, saying “the champion is sick at home” when asked how it felt to win Olympic gold for his country and continent.
Continued success
After winning yet another race shoeless – the Athens Classic Marathon in 1961 – Bikila returned to defend his title at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. By this time he had found comfortable shoes.
After holding off the competition, the Ethiopian became the first marathoner to win back-to-back titles at the Games.
Basil Heatley of Great Britain had come into the race as the world record holder, boasting a time of two hours, 13 minutes and 55 seconds. Bikila left the Briton trailing behind, taking gold in two hours and 12 seconds.
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He achieved this despite having surgery to remove his appendix just a month earlier.
Heatley, who took silver, was lagging more than four minutes behind the Ethiopian when he crossed the line. Reminiscing about that race day, he acknowledged the superiority of Bikala.
“I don’t think there was any way I or anyone else could have lived with Bikila on that day. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to know him, but I remember him as a very quiet, very dignified man,” Heatley told Marathon and Distance Runner magazine later.
Since Bikila’s history-making double, only two other athletes have won consecutive marathons at the Olympic Games. Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski did it in Montreal in 1976 and in Moscow four years later, and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya did it at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. He is aiming for a hat-trick at Paris 2024.
More than his history-making Olympic heroics, though, Bikila laid the foundation for the countless gold medals that have been achieved by his compatriots, as well as their neighbours Kenya, in long- and middle-distance running globally since his epic victory in 1960.
He became paralysed after a car accident in 1969 and died from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1973 at the age of 41. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
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