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.Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 296 He is most famous for the gold medal he won in the 1960 Summer Olympics at Rome. He won the marathon while running barefoot.Michael Hurley, World's Greatest Olympians (Chicago, Il: Heinemann Library, 2012), p. 10 He won his second Gold medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 297 This made him the first man ever to win two Olympic marathons. He competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics. Bikila was injured in an automobile accident in 1970.Dictionary of African Biography, eds. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Vol I (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 42 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. A stadium in Addis Ababa is named after him.

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Category:1973 deaths
Category:1932 births
Category:1968 Summer Olympics
Category:Ethiopian athletes
Category:Olympians for Ethiopia
Category:Medalists at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Category:Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics 
Category:Olympic gold medalists