Shambel Abebe Bikila (; August 7, 1932 – October 25, 1973) was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He is the first black African Olympic gold medalist , winning his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal. In turn, he became the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time. Born in Shewa, Abebe moved to Addis Ababa around 1952 and joined the 5th Infantry Regiment of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard, an elite infantry division that safeguarded the Emperor of Ethiopia. Enlisting as a soldier before his athletic career, he rose to the rank of shambel (captain). Abebe participated in a total of sixteen marathons. He placed second on his first marathon in Addis Ababa, won twelve other races, and finished fifth in the 1963 Boston Marathon. In July 1967, he sustained the first of several sports-related leg injuries that prevented him from finishing his last two marathons. Abebe was a pioneer in long-distance running. Mamo Wolde, Juma Ikangaa, Tegla Loroupe, Paul Tergat, and Haile Gebrselassie—all recipients of the New York Road Runners' Abebe Bikila Award—are a few of the athletes who have followed in his footsteps to establish East Africa as a force in long-distance running. On March 22, 1969, Abebe was paralysed due to a car accident. He regained some upper-body mobility, but he never walked again. While he was receiving medical treatment in England, Abebe competed in archery and table tennis at the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games in London. Those Games were an early predecessor of the Paralympic Games. He competed in both sports at a 1971 competition for the disabled in Norway and won its cross-country sleigh-riding event. Abebe died at age 41 on October 25, 1973, of a cerebral hemorrhage related to his accident four years earlier. He received a state funeral, and Emperor Haile Selassie declared a national day of mourning. Many schools, venues, and events, including Abebe Bikila Stadium in Addis Ababa, are named after him. He is the subject of biographies and films documenting his athletic career, and he is often featured in publications about the marathon and the Olympics. Early life Abebe with wife Yewebdar and one of his children Abebe Bikila was born on August 7, 1932, in the small community of Jato, then part of the Selale District of Shewa. His birthday coincided with the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Marathon . Abebe was the son of Wudinesh Beneberu and her second husband, Demissie. During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1937), his family was forced to move to the remote town of Gorro. By then, Wudinesh had divorced Abebe's father and married Temtime Kefelew. The family eventually moved back to Jato (or nearby Jirru), where they had a farm. Due to Rome's blistering heat, the race started in late-afternoon at the foot of the Capitoline Hill staircase and finished at night at the Arch of Constantine, just outside the Colosseum. The course twice passed Piazza di Porta Capena, where the Obelisk of Axum was then located. When the runners passed the Obelisk the first time, Abebe was at the rear of the lead pack, which included Great Britain's Arthur Keily, Moroccan Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, Ireland's Bertie Messitt, and Belgian Aurèle Vandendriessche. Abebe and ben Abdesselam remained together until the last . Nearing the Obelisk again, Abebe sprinted to the finish. In the early-evening darkness, his path along the Appian Way was lined with Italian soldiers holding torches. Abebe's winning time was 2:15:16.2, twenty-five seconds faster than ben Abdesselam at 2:15:41.6, and breaking Popov's world record by eight tenths of a second. Immediately after crossing the finish line Abebe began to touch his toes and run in place, and later said that he could have run another . 1960–64 alt=Haile Selassie awards the Star of Ethiopia to Abebe in the Green Salon of the emperor's palace.|Emperor Haile Selassie confers the Star of Ethiopia on Abebe after his victory in the Olympic marathon, 1960. Abebe returned to his homeland a hero. He was greeted by a large crowd, many dignitaries and the commander of the Imperial Guard, Brigadier-General Mengistu Neway. Abebe was paraded through the streets of Addis Ababa along a procession route lined with thousands of people and presented to Emperor Haile Selassie. The emperor awarded him the Star of Ethiopia and promoted him to the rank of asiraleqa (corporal). He was given the use of a chauffeur-driven Volkswagen Beetle (since he did not yet know how to drive) and a home, both owned by the Guard . On December 13, 1960, while Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil, Imperial Guard forces led by Mengistu began an unsuccessful coup and briefly proclaimed Selassie's eldest son Asfaw Wossen Taffari emperor. Fighting took place in the heart of Addis Ababa, shells detonated in the Jubilee Palace, and many of those closest to the emperor were killed. Although Abebe was not directly involved, he was briefly arrested and questioned. Mengistu was later hanged, and his forces (which included many members of the Imperial Guard) were killed in the fighting, arrested or fled. In the 1961 Athens Classical Marathon, Abebe again won while running barefoot. This was the second and last event in which he competed barefooted. The same year he won the marathons in Osaka and Košice. While in Japan, he was approached by a Japanese shoe company, Onitsuka Tiger, with the possibility of wearing its shoes; they were informed by Niskanen that Abebe had "other commitments . "  Kihachiro Onitsuka suspected that Abebe had a secret sponsorship deal with Puma, in spite of the now-abandoned rules against such deals. alt=1964 Olympic marathon through the streets of Tokyo, won by Abebe|thumbtime=103|Universal Newsreel footage of the 1964 Olympic Men's Marathon 1964 Tokyo Olympics Forty days before the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Abebe began to feel pain while training in Debre Zeit. He was brought to the hospital and diagnosed with acute appendicitis, and had an appendectomy on September 16. Back on his feet in a few days, Abebe left the hospital within a week. Abebe entered the Olympic stadium alone, to the cheers of 75,000 spectators. The crowd had been listening on the radio and anticipated his triumphant entrance. Abebe finished with a time of 2:12:11.2, four minutes and eight seconds ahead of silver medalist Basil Heatley of Great Britain, who passed Tsuburaya inside the stadium. Tsuburaya was third, a few seconds behind Heatley. Abebe did not appear exhausted after the finish, and he again performed a routine of calisthenics, which included touching "his toes twice then [lying] down on his back, cycling his legs in the air . "  He was the first runner to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. Abebe and Waldemar Cierpinski are the only athletes to have won two gold medals in the event, and they both did it back-to-back. For the second time, Abebe received Ethiopia's only gold medal and again returned home to a hero's welcome. The emperor promoted him to the commissioned-officer rank of metoaleqa (lieutenant). Abebe received the Order of Menelik II, a Volkswagen Beetle and a house. Plaque commemorating Abebe on the Via di San Gregorio in Rome|alt=A plaque on a wall in Rome, describing Abebe's victoryOn October 25, 1973, Abebe died in Addis Ababa at age 41 of a cerebral hemorrhage, a complication related to his accident four years earlier. He was buried with full military honours; his state funeral was attended by an estimated 65,000 people including Emperor Haile Selassie, who proclaimed a day of mourning for the country's national hero. Abebe is interred in a tomb with a bronze statue at Saint Joseph Church in Addis Ababa. alt=Lightweight blue shoe with individual toes|Vibram's "Bikila" shoes According to Abebe's New York Times obituary, Abebe and Yewebdar had three sons, along with their daughter Tsige. In 2010, the Italian company Vibram introduced the "Bikila" model of its FiveFingers line of minimalist shoes. In February 2015, Abebe's surviving children Teferi, Tsige and Yetnayet Abebe Bikila, along with their mother, filed a lawsuit in United States federal court in Tacoma, Washington, claiming Vibram violated federal law and the state's Personality Rights Act. The case was dismissed in October 2016 on the grounds that the plaintiffs were aware of Vibram's use of the name in 2011, but did not file suit until four years later. According to judge Ronald Leighton, " ... this unreasonable delay prejudiced Vibram." It came to light in December 2019 that the family of Abebe received his Olympic ring that he lost at the Tokyo Olympic stadium's bathroom. Abebe left his winning ring in a bathroom after he won the olympic medal. A woman who was working in the bathroom at that time took it home with her. The woman has since died, but her son said his mom later regretted taking the ring and was waiting for an opportunity to return it. He gave the ring to Yetnayet, son of the late Abebe, when Yetnayet came to Kasama City in Japan in December 2019 as a guest of honor for the half marathon competition conducted in honor of his father. In popular culture alt=Painting of 12 events in Abebe's life|Folk art depicting Abebe's life Abebe has been featured in several documentaries about his life and the Olympics in general. His victory at the 1964 Olympics was featured in the 1965 documentary, Tokyo Olympiad directed by Kon Ichikawa. Footage from that film was recycled in the 1976 thriller, Marathon Man directed by John Schlesinger and starring Dustin Hoffman. Abebe was the subject of Bud Greenspan's 1972 documentary, The Ethiopians. The documentary was incorporated into The Marathon , a 1976 episode of Greenspan's The Olympiad television documentary series. The Marathon , which chronicles Abebe's two Olympic victories, ends with a dedication ceremony for a gymnasium named in Abebe's honour shortly before his death. In 1992, Yamada Kazuhiro published the first full biography about Abebe, written in Japanese and published in Tokyo; it was entitled Do you remember Abebe? (). Since then, there have been at least three biographical works based on his life. Among these is Triumph and Tragedy, written in English by his daughter Tsige Abebe and published in Addis Ababa in 1996. The other two, also written in English, are Paul Rambali's 2007 fictional biographical novel Barefoot Runner and Tim Judah's 2009 Bikila: Ethiopia's Barefoot Olympian. According to the journalist Tim Lewis's comparative review of the two books, Judah's is a more journalistic, less-forgiving biography of Abebe. It refutes the mythical aspects of his life but recognises Abebe's athletic accomplishments. Judah's account of Abebe's life differs significantly from Rambali's, but confirms (and frequently cites) Tsige's biography. For example, Lewis cites the discrepancy in the circumstances surrounding Abebe's car accident: Representing 1956 Armed Forces championship Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 1960 Armed Forces championship Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:39:50 Olympic Trials Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:21:23 Olympic Games Rome, Italy 2:15:16.21961 Athens International Marathon Athens, Greece 2:23:44.6 Mainichi Marathon Osaka, Japan 2:29:27 Košice Marathon Košice, Czechoslovakia 2:20:12.0 1963 Boston Marathon Boston, USA 2:24:43a1964 Armed Forces championship Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:23:14.8 Olympic Trials Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:16:18.8 Olympic Games Tokyo, Japan 2:12:11.2 1965 Mainichi Marathon Shiga Prefecture, Japan 2:22:55.81966 Zarautz International Marathon Zarautz, Spain 2:20:28.8 Incheon–Seoul Marathon Seoul, South Korea 2:17:04a 1967 Zarautz International Marathon Zarautz, Spain 1968 Olympic Games Mexico City, Mexico
Shambel Abebe Bikila (; August 7, 1932 – October 25, 1973) was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He is the first black African Olympic gold medallist , winning his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal. In turn, he became the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time. Born in Shewa, Abebe moved to Addis Ababa around 1952 and joined the 5th Infantry Regiment of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard, an elite infantry division that safeguarded the emperor of Ethiopia. Enlisting as a soldier before his athletic career, he rose to the rank of shambel (captain). Abebe participated in a total of sixteen marathons. He placed second on his first marathon in Addis Ababa, won twelve other races, and finished fifth in the 1963 Boston Marathon. In July 1967, he sustained the first of several sports-related leg injuries that prevented him from finishing his last two marathons. Abebe was a pioneer in long-distance running. Mamo Wolde, Juma Ikangaa, Tegla Loroupe, Paul Tergat, and Haile Gebrselassie—all recipients of the New York Road Runners' Abebe Bikila Award—are a few of the athletes who have followed in his footsteps to establish East Africa as a force in long-distance running. On March 22, 1969, Abebe was paralysed due to a car accident. He regained some upper-body mobility, but he never walked again. While he was receiving medical treatment in England, Abebe competed in archery and table tennis at the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games in London. Those games were an early predecessor of the Paralympic Games. He competed in both sports at a 1971 competition for the disabled in Norway and won its cross-country sleigh-riding event. Abebe died at age 41 on October 25, 1973, of a cerebral hemorrhage related to his accident four years earlier. He received a state funeral, and Emperor Haile Selassie declared a national day of mourning. Many schools, venues, and events, including Abebe Bikila Stadium in Addis Ababa, are named after him. He is the subject of biographies and films documenting his athletic career, and he is often featured in publications about the marathon and the Olympics. Early life Abebe with wife Yewebdar and one of his children Abebe Bikila was born on August 7, 1932, in the small community of Jato, then part of the Selale District of Shewa. His birthday coincided with the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic marathon . Abebe was the son of Wudinesh Beneberu and her second husband, Demissie. During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1937), his family was forced to move to the remote town of Gorro. By then, Wudinesh had divorced Abebe's father and married Temtime Kefelew. The family eventually moved back to Jato (or nearby Jirru), where they had a farm. Due to Rome's blistering heat, the race started in late-afternoon at the foot of the Capitoline Hill staircase and finished at night at the Arch of Constantine, just outside the Colosseum. The course twice passed Piazza di Porta Capena, where the Obelisk of Axum was then located. When the runners passed the obelisk the first time, Abebe was at the rear of the lead pack, which included Great Britain's Arthur Keily, Moroccan Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, Ireland's Bertie Messitt, and Belgian Aurèle Vandendriessche. Abebe and ben Abdesselam remained together until the last . Nearing the obelisk again, Abebe sprinted to the finish. In the early-evening darkness, his path along the Appian Way was lined with Italian soldiers holding torches. Abebe's winning time was 2:15:16.2, twenty-five seconds faster than ben Abdesselam at 2:15:41.6, and breaking Popov's world record by eight tenths of a second. Immediately after crossing the finish line Abebe began to touch his toes and run in place, and later said that he could have run another . 1960–64 alt=Haile Selassie awards the Star of Ethiopia to Abebe in the Green Salon of the emperor's palace.|Emperor Haile Selassie confers the Star of Ethiopia on Abebe after his victory in the Olympic marathon, 1960. Abebe returned to his homeland a hero. He was greeted by a large crowd, many dignitaries and the commander of the Imperial Guard, Brigadier-General Mengistu Neway. Abebe was paraded through the streets of Addis Ababa along a procession route lined with thousands of people and presented to Emperor Haile Selassie. The Emperor awarded him the Star of Ethiopia and promoted him to the rank of asiraleqa (corporal). He was given the use of a chauffeur-driven Volkswagen Beetle (since he did not yet know how to drive) and a home, both owned by the guard . On December 13, 1960, while Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil, Imperial Guard forces led by Mengistu began an unsuccessful coup and briefly proclaimed Selassie's eldest son Asfaw Wossen Taffari emperor. Fighting took place in the heart of Addis Ababa, shells detonated in the Jubilee Palace, and many of those closest to the Emperor were killed. Although Abebe was not directly involved, he was briefly arrested and questioned. Mengistu was later hanged, and his forces (which included many members of the Imperial Guard) were killed in the fighting, arrested or fled. In the 1961 Athens Classical Marathon, Abebe again won while running barefoot. This was the second and last event in which he competed barefooted. The same year he won the marathons in Osaka and Košice. While in Japan, he was approached by a Japanese shoe company, Onitsuka Tiger, with the possibility of wearing its shoes; they were informed by Niskanen that Abebe had "other commitments " . Kihachiro Onitsuka suspected that Abebe had a secret sponsorship deal with Puma, in spite of the now-abandoned rules against such deals. alt=1964 Olympic marathon through the streets of Tokyo, won by Abebe|thumbtime=103|Universal Newsreel footage of the 1964 Olympic Men's marathon 1964 Tokyo Olympics Forty days before the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Abebe began to feel pain while training in Debre Zeit. He was brought to the hospital and diagnosed with acute appendicitis, and had an appendectomy on September 16. Back on his feet in a few days, Abebe left the hospital within a week. Abebe entered the Olympic stadium alone, to the cheers of 75,000 spectators. The crowd had been listening on the radio and anticipated his triumphant entrance. Abebe finished with a time of 2:12:11.2, four minutes and eight seconds ahead of silver medallist Basil Heatley of Great Britain, who passed Tsuburaya inside the stadium. Tsuburaya was third, a few seconds behind Heatley. Abebe did not appear exhausted after the finish, and he again performed a routine of calisthenics, which included touching "his toes twice then [lying] down on his back, cycling his legs in the air " . He was the first runner to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. Abebe and Waldemar Cierpinski are the only athletes to have won two gold medals in the event, and they both did it back-to-back. For the second time, Abebe received Ethiopia's only gold medal and again returned home to a hero's welcome. The Emperor promoted him to the commissioned-officer rank of metoaleqa (lieutenant). Abebe received the Order of Menelik II, a Volkswagen Beetle and a house. Plaque commemorating Abebe on the Via di San Gregorio in Rome|alt=A plaque on a wall in Rome, describing Abebe's victory On October 25, 1973, Abebe died in Addis Ababa at age 41 of a cerebral hemorrhage, a complication related to his accident four years earlier. He was buried with full military honours; his state funeral was attended by an estimated 65,000 people including Emperor Haile Selassie, who proclaimed a day of mourning for the country's national hero. Abebe is interred in a tomb with a bronze statue at Saint Joseph Church in Addis Ababa. alt=Lightweight blue shoe with individual toes|Vibram's "Bikila" shoes According to Abebe's New York Times obituary, Abebe and Yewebdar had three sons, along with their daughter Tsige. In 2010, the Italian company Vibram introduced the "Bikila" model of its FiveFingers line of minimalist shoes. In February 2015, Abebe's surviving children Teferi, Tsige and Yetnayet Abebe Bikila, along with their mother, filed a lawsuit in United States federal court in Tacoma, Washington, claiming Vibram violated federal law and the state's Personality Rights Act. The case was dismissed in October 2016 on the grounds that the plaintiffs were aware of Vibram's use of the name in 2011, but did not file suit until four years later. According to judge Ronald Leighton, " this unreasonable delay prejudiced Vibram." It came to light in December 2019 that the family of Abebe received his Olympic ring that he lost at the Tokyo Olympic stadium's bathroom. Abebe left his winning ring in a bathroom after he won the Olympic medal. A woman who was working in the bathroom at that time took it home with her. The woman has since died, but her son said his mom later regretted taking the ring and was waiting for an opportunity to return it. He gave the ring to Yetnayet, son of the late Abebe, when Yetnayet came to Kasama City in Japan in December 2019 as a guest of honour for the half marathon competition conducted in honour of his father. In popular culture alt=Painting of 12 events in Abebe's life|Folk art depicting Abebe's life Abebe has been featured in several documentaries about his life and the Olympics in general. His victory at the 1964 Olympics was featured in the 1965 documentary, Tokyo Olympiad directed by Kon Ichikawa. Footage from that film was recycled in the 1976 thriller, Marathon Man directed by John Schlesinger and starring Dustin Hoffman. Abebe was the subject of Bud Greenspan's 1972 documentary, The Ethiopians. The documentary was incorporated into "The Marathon" , a 1976 episode of Greenspan's The Olympiad television documentary series. "The Marathon" , which chronicles Abebe's two Olympic victories, ends with a dedication ceremony for a gymnasium named in Abebe's honour shortly before his death. In 1992, Yamada Kazuhiro published the first full biography about Abebe, written in Japanese and published in Tokyo; it was entitled Do You Remember Abebe? (). Since then, there have been at least three biographical works based on his life. Among these is Triumph and Tragedy, written in English by his daughter Tsige Abebe and published in Addis Ababa in 1996. The other two, also written in English, are Paul Rambali's 2007 fictional biographical novel Barefoot Runner and Tim Judah's 2009 Bikila: Ethiopia's Barefoot Olympian. According to the journalist Tim Lewis's comparative review of the two books, Judah's is a more journalistic, less-forgiving biography of Abebe. It refutes the mythical aspects of his life but recognises Abebe's athletic accomplishments. Judah's account of Abebe's life differs significantly from Rambali's, but confirms (and frequently cites) Tsige's biography. For example, Lewis cites the discrepancy in the circumstances surrounding Abebe's car accident: Representing 1956 Armed Forces championship Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 1960 Armed Forces championship Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:39:50 Olympic Trials Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:21:23 Olympic Games Rome, Italy 2:15:16.21961 Athens International Marathon Athens, Greece 2:23:44.6 Mainichi Marathon Osaka, Japan 2:29:27 Košice Marathon Košice, Czechoslovakia 2:20:12.0 1963 Boston Marathon Boston, US 2:24:43a1964 Armed Forces championship Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:23:14.8 Olympic Trials Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2:16:18.8 Olympic Games Tokyo, Japan 2:12:11.2 1965 Mainichi Marathon Shiga Prefecture, Japan 2:22:55.81966 Zarautz International Marathon Zarautz, Spain 2:20:28.8 Incheon–Seoul Marathon Seoul, South Korea 2:17:04a 1967 Zarautz International Marathon Zarautz, Spain 1968 Olympic Games Mexico City, Mexico
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