Conversation so far:
What did Adebe Bikila do in the 1960 Olympics?
Adebe Bikila won his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot.
Was Adebe Bikila expected to do well or was he an underdog?
Adebe Bikila won again in Addis Ababa with a time of 2:21:23, which was faster than the existing Olympic record held by Emil Zátopek.

Question: Had he been training for very long?
Self-contained rewrite: Had Adebe Bikila been training for marathons very long before the 1960 lympics?