I wrote this piece several years back and continued to work on it off and on over the years. It is a flawed piece but the research of Bikila is difficult and it is easy to become too emotional about extraordinary courage . There is so much to tell about Bikila after the accident but this seems like the day to finally hit “PUBLISH” and share my love of Bikila with anyone who happens by here.
Almost in the same instant, the world gasped his name in wonderment:
BI-KI-LA…
In September, 1960, a little known marathon runner from Ethiopia, shocked the world by winning the Olympic gold medal in world record time, running in his bare feet. No Ethiopian, or black African, for that matter, had ever won a medal of any kind at the Olympics. Abebe Bikila won the first by running 26.2 miles in and around Rome on the last day of the 1960 Olympic Games. Ancient cobblestones, uneven brick, and navigating a long, inadequately lighted stretch of the race course, up the Apian Way to near the finish, all gave this marathon course, its own particular personality. To challenge it in bare feet, seemed lunacy.
Imagine the golden sun splashed Roman afternoon. The runners and trainers begin to gather under a tent for check in near the starting line. There is a large park for pre-race preparation. As Bikila warms up, there is contempt in the eyes of some of the other marathoners. Some are amused, some have heard of his times which purport to break word records but are not recognized by any legitimate sanctioning body. They joke about “African watches” and the country’s lack of shoes. They roll their eyes at the probability that a true marathon course could be measured and properly laid out in a place as backward as Ethiopia. Some runners however, sense something else in the quiet African man who seems determined to run in his bare feet.
As the race progresses and the sun sets on Rome, Abebe Bikila moves smoothly from back in the pack to the rear of the lead group. The course is illuminated in parts solely by Italian soldiers holding tall torches. As the leaders pass groups of spectators gathered near the torches, they look at each other in confusion, not sure what they have just seen. Was that man barefoot? Did he lose his shoes? Even the soldiers holding the torches and standing at attention, break their stoic stance and do a double take, to be sure what they have seen. People rush forward and lean over the security barricades, and look again. Bikila is almost disappearing into the darkness, but, as he runs away, they can see the bottoms of his feet – chalky white and iridescent in the torch light. Then he is a toiling shadow, chasing other shadows, until he reaches the next torch and flashes past another crowd of bewildered onlookers and the pandemonium is repeated.
Between the torches there are few spectators, and the runners are alone with the race and the sounds. There is a rhythm in the lead pack as they run together. But now that rhythm is changing as something is pressing them from behind. Fear and defeat are creeping into the hearts of some of the world’s great marathoners, as Bikila is accelerating toward them. Long before they feel his presence, they hear his feet. The sound is so unlike the pitter pat of shoes running on the stone and brick streets, it is a sound like thick leather slapping in their ears. The other runners can no longer concentrate on their own race; they can no longer hear their own breathing or the rhythm of their over strides. It is audibly obvious to them that Bikila’s pace is much faster than theirs, as he approaches them. As he sweeps past and on ahead, their spirits are crushed by how effortlessly he runs and they are left only with the sound of his feet slapping the street, and, then, nothing. The lead pack disintegrates, as every runner Bikila passes faces the crushing truth and falls away. There is only one runner, the Moroccan, left for Bikila to overtake. As Bikila passes him, the Moroccan takes up the challenge and runs at Bikila’s side for a few kilometers.
With just a few kilometers to go in the race, Bikila passes the Obelisk of Axum. Mussolini plundered this sacred tower from Ethiopia in the late 1930’s and moved it to Rome. As Bikila passes the obelisk, he accelerates further, to a near-sprint, burying the last competitor by several hundred meters. As he races to the finish down a long well lit boulevard to the finish line, thousands cheer in a way that people cheer wildly when they are seeing something no one has seen before. They are laughing and clapping and shaking their heads and exhorting Bikila, who is flying, to go even faster, which he seems to do.
After he wins, reporters ask why he ran barefoot. Two stories emerge. Bikila says,” …to show the world that through courage and persistence the Ethiopian people will always be victorious.” This is perhaps a not-so-veiled reference to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia during Bikila’s early childhood and sounds like something the Empower of Ethiopia would write for him to say. When asked about it further, Bikila said he had made a mistake in the timing for breaking in some new shoes. The old shoes were worn out and his new shoes, he worried, might cause blisters and force him to drop out. Bikila revealed that he preferred to run barefoot and did most of his training in bare feet. His coach, Onni Niskanen, preferred that he wear shoes, but Bikila prevailed in convincing Niskanen that he should run barefoot. When asked about why he started his finishing kick in front of the Obelisk of Axom, Bikila gave a runner’s answer, saying he and Niskanen had surveyed the course in the days before the marathon and simply thought that strategically, it was the best place.
Word of his victory sweeps across the continent of Africa and even in places that have not heard of television and do not have radio, the story of the humble, country-boy, soldier from Ethiopia, who raced the world in his bare feet, and won, is told and retold. He is world famous almost overnight, but in Africa, he is like Michael Jordan, Muhammed Ali, Jesse Owens, and Martin Luther King, all wrapped up in one person. If someone utters his name, all who hear it smile and feel the tingle of their own dreams.
In Ethiopia, Bikila is celebrated as the greatest Ethiopian, other than Selassie. Bikila’s accomplishment ranks as one of the greatest of a storied culture and people.
Even if running bare foot in Rome, with a finishing kick beginning at the Obelisk of Axom, is not a political statement, Bikila’s life becomes instantly political upon his return to Africa. Empower Haile Selassie uses Bikila to promote the African Independence Movement. Bikila’s appearances draw massive crowds around Africa. Selassie presents Bikila as the African Ideal.
As a boy, he went to school through the 6th grade and spent a lot of time farming and shepherding. In those days, if you wanted to get somewhere, you walked. And if you wanted to get there fast, you ran. The mail in those days, was delivered by runner from village to village. Boys would meet the runner as he approached and race each other back to the center of the village. When the mail runner moved on to the next village, the boys would race again as far out of town as their parents and work would allow before turning back. It is likely that Bikila developed an early love of running during these days. Living and running at an altitude where the air was thinner gave Bikila’s body a tremendous advantage.
In fact, Bikila was good at all sports, especially soccer, and local games. When he was 17, his older brother helped him to get into the Royal Guard. As part of the Royal Guard, he participates in many sports activities. In 1956, he was 24 years old, and he sees a parade with some athletes with warm-up suits far nicer than his. He asks a friend who the athletes were and the friend tells him they are Ethiopia’s first Olympic team that competed in the Melbourne Games. He decides he wants one of the warm-ups and asks to train with the unit of the Royal Guard that specializes in sports. Two years later, he beats the best Ethiopian runners to win the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races in their national games. He also runs his first marathon, the only marathon he would run before Rome. His time is faster than the existing world record but the event is unsanctioned and therefore cannot be reported as a world record. When he submits the time on his entry for the Rome Olympics, no one believes it is true.
After 1960, Bikila continues to run and wins the world championship in 1962 and takes aim at winning another gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. 40 days before the Olympics his hopes are crushed when he suffers an attack of appendicitis and is sidelined for several weeks. The operation does not go well and he suffers a mild infection which slows his recovery. As the team leaves for Tokyo, Bikila is weak and out of shape. He is not sure he can run at all. When he arrives in Tokyo, he is buoyed by the reception given to him by the Japanese. He is a legend in Japan and they have looked forward to his arrival for four years. Bikila begins training with his friend and protégé, Mamo Wolde, the best of the next generation of great Ethiopian distance runners. A few days before the Tokyo marathon, Bikila decides he can run, hoping to not disappoint the Japanese people. This time, he runs in shoes. By the mid-way point in the race, Bikila has taken the lead and goes on to win the gold medal by over 4 minutes, setting a new Olympic and World Record.
After Tokyo, Selassie, gives Bikila a house and a new Volkswagen. Bikila won almost every marathon he ever ran. In 1968, he tried for the gold in Mexico City but he is beginning to have circulatory problems in his legs. He drops out halfway through the race and faints from the pain, but he is proud that his friend and training partner, Mamo Wolde, wins the gold for Ethiopia. Bikila is trying to get well and begin training when he is involved in a car accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down. Bikila now begins to participate in para-olympic events and resigns himself to helping coach the Ethiopian distance running dynasty that he and his coach, Onni Niskanen, started.
He is honored at the opening ceremonies of the 1972 Munich Olympics. Many of the world’s great Olympians are there but the crowd rises and cheers longest when Bikila wheels on to the track. On October 25, 1973, Bikila dies of a brain hemorrhage. 100, 000 people from all over the world and including Haile Selasse, attend his funeral.
azenyardhen 