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.^[1] He is most famous for the gold medal he won in the 1960 Summer Olympics at Rome. He won the marathon while running barefoot.^[2] He won his second Gold medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.^[3] This made him the first man ever to win two Olympic marathons.^[3] He competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics. Bikila was injured in an automobile accident in 1970.^[4] 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.^[4] A stadium in Addis Ababa is named after him.

References

↑ Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 296
↑ Michael Hurley, World's Greatest Olympians (Chicago, Il: Heinemann Library, 2012), p. 10
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 297
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Dictionary of African Biography, eds. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Vol I (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 42

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[1] Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 296

[2] Michael Hurley, World's Greatest Olympians (Chicago, Il: Heinemann Library, 2012), p. 10

[Sears297-3] 3.0 ^3.1 Edward Seldon Sears, Running Through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), p. 297

[DAB42-4] 4.0 ^4.1 Dictionary of African Biography, eds. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Vol I (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 42

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