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I wrote about a shitty Olympic marathon that happened in 1904. Let’s talk about a cool one from 1960. The one where all three medalists came from countries that had never won a medal in the Olympic marathon. The one where a world record was set. The one where Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, while running barefoot, became the first Black African to win an Olympic gold medal.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 10, 1960--
Shit I kinda blew my wad in that opening paragraph. Except no, because Bikila has a life story worth telling. Born in 1932 in a small town, Abebe joined the Ethiopian Imperial Guard when he was about 20, and the army is rather encouraging of people to run, so Abebe ran a good dozen miles every day. There is an apocryphal story about him being a last-minute entry for the games, but the army and his country both recognized his talent early and said yeah he needs to go the Olympics.
There were numerous champion marathoners at the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome. Bikila’s name was not mentioned among the favorites. Rather, the Russian Sergei Popov, who had set a world record in the marathon two years previous with a time of 2:15:17 was considered most likely to win. Abebe showed up in Rome having already beaten the existing Olympic record in a race in Addis Ababa, and bought a pair of shoes. But the fuckers didn’t fit well and gave him blisters so he said screw this bullshit I’m running barefoot, and that’s what he did.
He blew away the Olympic record by almost eight minutes, and also claimed the title of world record holder, beating Popov’s best by a single second. Rhadi Ben Abdesselam of Morocco was only 25 seconds behind Abebe. Barry Magee of New Zealand followed Rhadi a minute-and-a-half later to claim bronze.
And then Abebe did it again four years later in Tokyo, beating his 1960 time by more than three minutes and claiming another world record.
In 1969 Abebe was in a car accident that made him a quadriplegic, although he later regained use of his arms. So he decided to take up competitive wheelchair archery, table tennis, and sled-dog racing. Abebe Bikila died in 1973 at the age of 41 due to complications from his 1969 car accident. He is credited with inspiring marathoners from across East Africa, transforming that part of the world into the dominant force in marathon competition.
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