The 1960 marathon staged in Rome was significant for several reasons: it was the first to be run at night, and the first that would start and end outside of the stadium. But perhaps most significant of all, it was the first Olympic marathon won by a black African, thus anticipating the dominance over the rest of the world that black Africans would enjoy in world-class distance running for many years to come (and which made itself especially apparent at the 1968 Games, in high-altitude Mexico City, where Kenyans felt almost as if they had a homefield advantage). One of the legendary figures of the Olympics and of distance running, Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila, won the Rome marathon running barefoot.

Four years later in Tokyo, in an unusual display of versatility, Bikila defended his title wearing socks and shoes. At the awards ceremony that year, no one in the band knew the Ethiopian national anthem, so they played the Japanese anthem instead.

Unfortunately, Bikila’s career and life, so full of triumph, took tragic turns. At the Mexico City Games, the Ethiopian pulled out after 10 miles with a fracture in his leg. Then, a year later, he was paralyzed in a car crash. The last four years of his life were spent in a wheelchair, and sadly, the only athlete ever to win two Olympic marathons died of a brain hemorrhage in 1973, at the age of 41.