The Ethiopian won gold at Sydney 2000 and at the 2001 World Championships. There is also Gezahegne Abera, the first person to accomplish an Olympics - World Championship marathon double. He successfully defended his Olympic title at the Moscow 1980 Games. The East German surprised the classy field to win his first of two Olympic marathons. Like the Ethiopian, he was unknown going into his first Olympics in Montreal. Or how about Waldemar Cierpinski who matched Bikila’s two Olympic marathon gold medals.

The world record list has been rewritten several times since then but his finishing time from Rome 1960 still stands as a Guinness World Record: “The fastest marathon run in bare feet is 2 hr 15 min 16.2 sec at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, on 10 September 1960.”Ībebe Bikila: barefoot to Olympic gold Waldemar Cierpinski, Samuel Wanjiru, and more It was the first time a Black African had topped the 42.195km race at the Games.Īfter ‘the greatest marathon in 64 years of the Olympic history,’ Bikila became the first runner to win two Olympic marathons by winning another gold at Tokyo 1964. At the Rome 1960 Olympics, while running barefoot, the Ethiopian pounded the cobblestones of the roman roads to win gold in world record time. Abebe BikilaĪbebe Bikila was a pioneer in marathon running. Of the nearly 30 official and unofficial records he broke in his 23-year career, he described the marathon records as his most cherished. The double Olympic champion over 10,000m made his debut at the marathon distance in London in 2002, finishing third.īut the Ethiopian was most successful in Berlin where he started five times, won four, and broke the world record there twice. Haile Gebrselassie is considered one of the greatest distance runners in history, having won titles and set world records across track and road races.

Marathon cat runner