September 10, 1960: The marathon is run at the Olympic Games in Rome, Italy. The winner ran the race barefoot.
It sounds made up. Or like one of those stories from the crazy marathon at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. But it really happened.
Abebe Bikila (Ah-BAY-bay Bih-KEE-lah) was born on August 7, 1932 in Jato, Ethiopia. Perhaps it was fate: That very day, the marathon was held at the Olympics in Los Angeles, won by Juan Carlos Zambana of Argentina.
He joined his country's Imperial Guard, which led to some confusion: Like the U.S. Secret Service, the Imperial Guard did more than provide physical protection for its country's head of state, in their case the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I. For the most part, it was an elite infantry division. For them, he was a courier, running 12 miles from the hills of Sululta to the capital of Addis Ababa and back, every day.
Two things began during this period: His family, as he entered into a marriage with Yewebdar Wolde-Giorgis, arranged by his mother, when he was 27 and his bride was just 15, although they remained married for the rest of his life; and his training for the Olympic marathon.
In spite of all his training, he didn't actually enter a marathon until July 1960, mere weeks before the Olympics, but he won 2 of them in Addis Ababa, the 2nd of them faster than the Olympic record set by Emil Zátopek of Czechoslovakia in 1952. In preparation for his big run in Rome, Bikila bought new running shoes, but they didn't fit well. He decided to run barefoot. (Baseball legend "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, so nicknamed for once playing in socks due to tight new spikes, had died in 1951, and was thus unavailable for comment.)
As set by the 1908 Olympics, a marathon is 26 miles, 385 yards, not the 25 or so that is the distance from Marathon to Athens in Greece. Usually, the last 385 yards are a lap around the track at the main stadium for the Games. This time, the finish line was at the Arch of Constantine, just outside the Colosseum. With the Mediterranean heat, the death of "the original Marathon runner," Pheidippides, in 490 BC, in mind, the race began in late afternoon, and ended at night.
Twice, the course took the runners past the Obelisk of Axum, built by the Ethiopian civilization of the 4th Century, around the time of Rome's Emperor Constantine. The Fascists stole it in 1937, during Italy's occupation of the country. It was not returned to Ethiopia until 2005.
The 2nd pass of the Obelisk was close to the finish line, and it was near it that Bikila passed the leader, Rhadi Ben Abdesselam of Morocco. He won in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 16.2 seconds, a new world's record. The 26.2 mile distance translates into the metric system as 40 kilometers. Bikila later said he could have run another 10 to 15 kilometers, or another 6 to 9 miles.
He got a parade through the streets of Addis Ababa, effectively his country's version of a ticker-tape parade. Haile Selassie awarded him the country's highest honor, the Star of Ethiopia medal, and gave him a new Volkswagen Beetle -- and a chaffeur, since, for all his running, he had never learned how to drive.
In 1961, he won marathon races in Athens; Osaka, Japan; and Košice, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia). In 1963, he came to America, and competed in the Boston Marathon -- and finished 5th. (Aurèle Vandendriessche of Belgium won it, and won it again in 1964.) But he won a marathon in Addis Ababa in 1964, and was ready to defend his title in the 1964 Olympics, in Tokyo.
The race was set for October 21 -- but had his appendix taken out on September 16. This time, he was wearing shoes, manufactured by Puma. He took the lead at the 9-mile mark, and won the race in 2 hours, 12 minutes, 11.2 seconds, a new Olympic record, although the world record was already lower. He was the 1st winner of 2 Olympic marathons. Through the return to Tokyo in 2021, there have been 2 more: Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany in 1976 and 1980, and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya in 2016 and 2020 (delayed to 2021 due to COVID).
On April 21, 1965, when the New York World's Fair opened for a 2nd season, Bikila was Ethiopia's official representative. (But there would be no New York City Marathon until 1971.) He entered the Olympic marathon again in 1968 in Mexico City, but had to drop out after 10 miles, due to an injury. Another Ethiopian, Mamo Wolde, won it. The Ethiopian Army promoted Bikila to the rank of Shambel, equivalent to Captain.
And he had learned how to drive. This proved tragic: On March 22, 1969, he lost control of his Beetle, and crashed, leaving him a quadriplegic. He received get-well cards from all over the world, and was visited by Queen Elizabet II of Britain. He regained the use of his arms, and, in 1970, through sheer determination, competed in archery and table tennis in games for the disabled in London and Norway. Also in Norway, he won a sled-dog race -- as a native of a tropical country where snow is rare.
He was named a special ambassador for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, and received a standing ovation at his introduction to the crowd. He presented the marathon's Gold Medal to the American winner, Frank Shorter.
But he never fully recovered from his injuries, and they led to a cerebral hemorrhage on October 25, 1973, ending his life at age 41. The Emperor ordered, and attended, a state funeral for him, complete with burial with full military honors. His tomb is topped with a bronze statue.
Haile Selassie was deposed in a military coup the following year, and was murdered under house arrest the year after that. Ethiopia was ruled by the Army until 1991, and remains one of the poorest countries on Earth. But Abebe Bikila inspired the long-distance running culture of East Africa, and the world's marathon races have been dominated by Ethiopians and Kenyans ever since.
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September 10, 1960 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-1 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium the next season.) Gil McDougald hit 2 home runs, and Mickey Mantle hit one. Bob Turley went the distance for the win.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Stan Musial entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and went 0-for-2.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-3 with an RBI. Ernie Banks went 0-for-4.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 5-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Jim Landis won the game with a home run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-5.
* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 10-8 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and relief pitcher Carlton Willey hit home runs for the Braves. Duke Snider hit a home run as a pinch-hitter for the Dodgers.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 7-4 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Ted Williams, in his last 16 days as an active player, went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
* And the Cincinnati Reds and the San Francisco Giants were rained out at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Reds won the opener, 2-1. The Giants won the nightcap, 3-2. Over the 2 games, Willie Mays went 3-for-9 with an RBI, but Frank Robinson didn't play in either game.
And in English soccer, the North London Derby was held. Tottenham Hotspur, on the way to their historic Football League and FA Cup "Double" achievement, beat Arsenal 3-2 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury.
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