Abebe Bikila
Abebe Bikila (7 August 1932 - 25 October 1973) was a double Olympic marathon champion from Ethiopia. He was the first black African Olympian to win a gold medal representing his own country.[1] He is most famous for the gold medal he won in the 1960 Summer Olympics at Rome. He won the marathon while running barefoot.[2] He won his second Gold medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.[3] This made him the first man ever to win two Olympic marathons.[3] He competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics. Bikila was injured in an automobile accident in 1970.[4] It left him a paraplegic. He died at the age of forty-one on 23 October 1973. This was due to complications from his earlier accident.[4] A stadium in Addis Ababa is named after him.
Abebe Bikila Media
Abebe with wife Yewebdar and one of their children
Emperor Haile Selassie confers the Star of Ethiopia on Abebe after his victory in the Olympic marathon, 1960.
Universal Newsreel footage of the 1964 Olympic Men's marathon
Abebe Bikila running on the Koshu Kaido
Abebe Bikila
Plaque commemorating Abebe on the Via di San Gregorio in Rome
Abebe Bikila Bridge in Ladispoli
Vibram FiveFingers Bikila shoes, outer side (facing away from other foot).
Folk art depicting Abebe's life
Abebe (#11), following Bertie Messitt (#58), Bakir Benaïssa, Arthur Keily (#46), Aurèle Vandendriessche (#36), and Rhadi Ben Abdesselam (#185)
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References
- ↑ Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 296
- ↑ Michael Hurley, World's Greatest Olympians (Chicago, Il: Heinemann Library, 2012), p. 10
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 297
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dictionary of African Biography, eds. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Vol I (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 42
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