Top 5 greatest African marathon runners of all time

Shambel Abebe Bikila (Ethiopia)

He was born on August 7, 1932, in Jato, Mendida, of Ethiopia Empire, and died on October 25, 1973. The late marathon runner was the first Ethiopian and African to win a gold medal at the Olympics – a feat he achieved at the 1960 Olympic marathon, where he made history running barefoot. He again won a second gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, making him the first athlete to win back-to-back Olympic marathon titles and the first to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title.

He was once a member of the 5th Infantry Regiment in the Ethiopian Imperial Guard before going into athletics. He participated in 16 different marathon competitions, winning the first position in 12, second position in one, and fifth position in one. He couldn’t finish his last two competitions in 1967 and 1968 due to sports-related injuries.

The only two major events where he won gold medals were the I960 Summer Olympics in Rome and the 1964 summer Olympics in Tokyo. His athletics career ended on March 22, 1969, following a car accident that paralyzed him and kept him in a wheelchair till his death four years later from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by the accident.