He won Africa’s first gold medal at the Games by running the marathon barefoot. Four years later he repeated his success… in running shoes. He died tragically at the age of 41.
The first great African hero came from Ethiopia. His name was Abebe Bikila (Jato 1932 – Addis Ababa 1973) and his great merit was to win the first gold for Africa at the Olympic Games by winning the marathon barefoot, beating the world record, and repeating his victory four years later in Tokyo, also lowering the world record.Bikila showed that the black continent was capable of catching up with the West, not only through its revolutions that were bringing about its independence, but also through sport. And he did it in a country that, under Mussolini’s regime, had been the oppressor of its people.Bikila started running rather late. He liked it, but he never thought of taking up running until he saw his compatriots parading around the Palace of Emperor Haile Selassie I in their country’s official kit. They were the Ethiopian athletes who had participated in Melbourne ’56. For a member of the Imperial Guard like him, defending his people with the simple effort of his legs was very appealing.
This was the beginning of his career as an athlete. Gradually he began to win various long-distance events and broke records in the Armed Forces Championships, including the marathon. However, despite some recognition, he was unknown outside Ethiopia and was not selected to participate in the Rome Games. Sometimes fate is capricious and with Bikila it was. A football injury to one of the members of the marathon team allowed his inclusion. Bikila made history on 10 September 1960. On that day an unknown Ethiopian started the marathon barefoot. The shoes he was given to run in, Adidas (Olympic sponsor), were not comfortable for him. But he would give them a heroic touch at the end of the race. I wanted the world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism,” he said, “Everyone was shocked to see an athlete running barefoot while thinking he was not going to get anywhere. But the truth is that he got very far. Bikila was soon on the Roman cobbles and together with Moroccan Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, the big favourite, he made it all the way to the last 3 kilometres.
As the two passed the Aksum obelisk, expropriated from the Ethiopians, Abebe pressed on to reach the finish line alone, setting a new world record of 2h15:16. Under the arch of Constantine, the same arch from which Mussolini set off with his army to conquer Ethiopia, Bikila redeemed his country and brought Italy to its feet. Four years later, this time in running shoes, he won gold again in Tokyo, breaking the world record with 2h12:11. He became the first athlete to retain the Olympic marathon title, something that only the German Waldemar Cierpinski (Montreal ’76 – Moscow ’80) had achieved after him.
He was the first to retain the Olympic marathon title. In both races he broke the world record.
And again he did it in a heroic and impressive way, because only six weeks earlier he had been operated on for appendicitis, which affected his training schedule. Bikila broke all the moulds. Not only did he win, but he finished so intact that he waited for his rivals by doing a gymnastic plank. At the Mexico ’68 Olympic Games, Bikila, now 36 years old, was unable to do a hat-trick because of knee discomfort and, above all, because he suffered from altitude sickness, which forced him to withdraw after 15 kilometres. That was his last Olympic participation and the last time he was seen running.
The following year, Abebe was involved in a car accident (in the Volkswagen that the government had given him as a gift for his victory in Tokyo) when he tried to avoid a group of students at a demonstration. He was left a paraplegic for life, something he accepted with the same fortitude as when he won glory. “Successful men know tragedy. It was God’s will that I won in the Olympics, and it was God’s will that I had my accident. I accept those victories and I accept this tragedy. I have to accept both circumstances as facts of life and live happily,” he said at the time, and was invited to the Munich Games, where it was impressive to see the former paradigm of the stride in a wheelchair. The ovation was thunderous throughout the Olympic stadium. A year later, he died of a cerebral haemorrhage as a result of the after-effects of the accident. In his country, more than 65,000 people, with Emperor Haile Selassie I present, bade farewell to their hero.
Virtually until her breakthrough performance in Rome ’60, the black continent was nothing at the Olympic Games. Bikila was an inspiration for the next generation. Since then, Africans have become increasingly powerful in long-distance running and have become the world’s true dominators, as his compatriot Haile Gebrsselasie, another of history’s great long-distance runners, once summed it up: “Bikila made us Africans think: ‘Look, he is one of us, if he can do it, we can do the same’.”
