Abebe Bikila: Barefoot runner-Ethiopia

May 4, 2010 at 9:21 PM Leave a comment

A few of the other runners sniggered when they saw Abebe Bikila turn up at the start of the Olympic marathon with no shoes. As a television camera scanned the scrum of athletes readying themselves for the starter’s gun, a commentator asked: “And what’s this Ethiopian called?” It was 1960, Rome. Africa was just shrugging off the weight of colonial rule and some sporting officials still doubted Africans were ready for the big time. A little over 2 hr. 15 min. later that myth lay shattered by the slight man wearing number 11, a member of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie’s Imperial Guard and a proud African whose gliding, barefoot run through Rome’s cobblestone streets announced his continent’s emergence as a running powerhouse.

Bikila’s triumph was all the more stunning because it happened in the capital of Ethiopia’s former military occupier. Legend has it that he made his decisive move in the race just as he passed the Axum Obelisk, a towering stela that Mussolini had brought back from Ethiopia as war loot. Four years later in Tokyo, Bikila won gold again, the first man to defend his Olympic marathon title. This time he wore shoes.

For such a pivotal figure in sports history, not much is known about Bikila. Perhaps there is little to know. A poor villager who faithfully served the Emperor and was coached by a charismatic Swede named Onni Niskanen, Bikila left neither piles of letters nor much insight into his own dreams and beliefs. After his twin marathon wins, filled with hubris and alcohol, his body betrayed him. He failed in Mexico in ’68, was paralyzed in a car accident and died a few years later at the age of 41.

Two new books about the runner tackle in very different ways the paucity of behind-the-scenes substance and the absence of telling interviews with the man himself. In Barefoot Runner: The Life of Marathon Champion Abebe Bikila, former rock journalist Paul Rambali weaves a powerful narrative through a series

Source: Time

In 1960, Ethiopian athlete Abebe Bikila shocked the whole world and became an overnight sporting legend when he ran barefoot through Rome to win the Olympic marathon gold medal.

Virtually unknown in the world of sport, and joining the team only at the last minute, Bikila was the first African to win the top Olympic honor. He repeated the feat at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, this time wearing shoes and socks and, despite an operation for appendicitis six weeks prior, set a new world record and became the first consecutive marathon gold medal winner.

Now widely acknowledged as the greatest long-distance runner the world has ever known, Bikila returned to Ethiopia as an international sporting hero, before his life took a harrowing turn. This intriguing and elegant hybrid of biopic and documentary follows Bikila from his early days as a shepherd and soldier in Ethiopia, through his triumphant wins in Rome and Tokyo, to the aftermath of the car accident in Addis Ababa that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

His phenomenal journey is described here in loving detail, the intimate screenplay displaying a keen understanding of this incredible man and his defiant spirit. Rasselas Lakew, who also directed, co-wrote and co-produced, shines in the central role, bringing a quiet determination and an impressive depth to his portrayal of this extraordinary sportsman.

Co-director Lakew at onetime an athlete in Ethiopia, studied cinema at the University of Montana. Filmmaker Frankel is an audiovisual artist based in New York and Berlin.

THE ATHLETE

http://www.arrow-entertainment.com/html/The_Athlete/The_Athlete.html

Entry filed under: Life, Who is Who. Tags: .

To-Buy or to rent a Home Tigray, a ‘Battleground State’ in Ethiopian Elections

S	S	M	T	W	T	F
« Apr				Jun »
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

ethiozoo