Embodying the hope of Africa

Bikila: Ethiopia's Barefoot Olympian By Tim Judah Reportage Press, pp 175, £16.99ALMOST HALF a century has passed since a barefoot Ethiopian guardsman by the name of Abebe Bikila became the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal. Unknown and unheralded beforehand, Bikila raced away from a quality field in the torch-lit twilight into Rome to win the 1960 Olympic marathon in his bare feet.

Even at the time, there was a sense that this wasn't any ordinary result. The emphatic manner of Bikila's victory, the world best time he set and the fact that he had started life herding goats forever etched itself in the minds of observers. It was, after all, just 25 years since Italy had invaded Ethiopia and here was one of the Emperor Haile Selassie's guardsman, a simple Oromo peasant, wreaking sweet revenge on the aggressor on Italian soil.

At a time of great hope for Africa, when many of its nations were finding their feet and achieving independence, he came to capture this new spirit. As Judah writes in this short but honest biography: "Poor, yes, barefoot, yes - but victorious".

Sadly, as we know, most of this hope for Africa's future was squandered and so too the story of Bikila, no less than the country he came from, is one of triumph turning into tragedy. Barely 13 years after his victory, Bikila was dead, Ethiopia was on the brink of famine and war, and Africa's dreams were shattered.

Many great runners have come from Ethiopia since Bikila blazed the trail and revealed the potential of athletes born at high altitude and possessed of tremendous endurance. Miruts Yifter, Haile Gebrselassie and, from the most recent Olympics, Kenenisa Bikila, have stamped their authority on distance running in their respective generations. None, though, has matched the wider impact Bikila achieved with his breakthrough performance in Rome.

The supporting actor role in this drama is played by Onni Niskanen, a Swedish aid worker, adventurer and Bikila's trainer. Niskanen never realised his own dreams of sporting gold but in Ethiopia he discovered the fastest men on earth and delivered them to the world stage. Part of the proceeds of Judah's book go to Save the Children Sweden in Ethiopia, a charity headed by Niskanen between 1972 and 1981.

It was Niskanen who, as trainer to the Emperor's cadets, first spotted Bikila's potential and nurtured it with goal-oriented training and dietary plans. The laconic, wary Bikila and his showman trainer - Niskanens favourite party trick was chewing and swallowing glass - were an odd couple, but singularly effective at the Olympics. Bikila followed up his win in Rome with a second marathon gold in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, just weeks after having his appendix removed. Once again, he broke the world best time, coming home in two hours 12 minutes 11 seconds.

After his first victory, Bikila returned to a thunderous welcome. The Emperor gave him the equivalent of $75 and the use of a chauffeur-driven Volkswagen. Second time around, there was more adulation and Haile Selassie awarded him his own private car - by now he had learned to drive, more's the pity. Judah recounts the runners downfall in a few short pages. The fame went to Bikila's head; he lost all self-restraint and his drinking and womanising took off. His success inspired jealousy from the upper classes at home; running, after all, was for the poor who couldn't afford a horse or other means of transport.

Even Haile Selassie was irked at press claims that his guardsman was held in higher esteem than he, the Emperor. Bikila grew arrogant, his training suffered and he grew prone to injuries.

In the Mexico Olympics in 1968, he succumbed to the inevitable, dropping out injured after one-third of the race. Mamo Wolde, his compatriot and long-time rival, went on to win; Wolde would later spend a decade in jail, accused of having taken part in an execution during the regime that succeeded the Emperor's.

In March 1969, after he came from a bar, Bikila's Volkswagen turned over on a wet road 55 kilometres south of Addis Ababa, trapping him inside. He survived but sustained a broken neck and severe spinal injuries. He was sent to England for special treatment but never walked again.

A broken man, his willpower gone, he died of a brain haemorrhage in October 1973. Haile Selassie followed him to the grave just two years later, after he was deposed in a coup.

Judah's account is the better of recent books on the runner, though the claim on the dustjacket that it tells his "true" story for the first time is curious, given the references in the text to an earlier book by Bikila's daughter.

There are also a surprising number of mistakes: the Olympic marathon is usually held at the end of the games, not the middle as stated; I was intrigued to read that Ireland's Barry Magee won bronze behind Bikila in Rome, but a quick Google search revealed that Magee is, sadly for us, from New Zealand.

• Paul Cullen is an Irish Times journalist