Olympic Trailblazers

On the eve of the 31^st Olympiad, we’re ThrowingBack to two of Africa’s trailblazing Olympians: South Africa’s Reginald “Reggie” Walker and Abebe Bikele of Ethiopia.

Reggie Walker, until then a virtual nobody in the ranks of elite sprinting, was the surprise 100m gold medallist at the 1908 Olympic Games in London. So unheralded was Walker that, though “recommended” for the South African team, he was an unofficial selection deemed unworthy of government funding for the trip to London. His Olympic quest was funded through charity events arranged at the behest of a local sportswriter in his home province of Natal.

On 22 July 1908, Walker won the final “by over three feet” equalling the then Olympic record of 10.8 seconds. To make his triumph even more remarkable, he was only 19 years and 128 days old at the time and remains, the youngest ever winner of the Olympic 100m dash.

Just as remarkably, and even more memorably, marathon runner Abebe Bikele became the first black African to win an Olympic title at the 17^th Olympiad held in Rome in 1960. Not an original selection to represent his country, Bikele was an 11^th hour replacement for a teammate who had fallen ill – the plane from Addis to Rome was being prepped for departure when Bikele was informed. To add to the romance of his victory, the Ethiopian ran the race barefoot.

Now cited as the inspiration behind Ethiopia’s dominance over competitive distance-running, Bikele went on to win marathon gold at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, the first man in history to win that event twice. Not a fan of doing things the easy way, Bikele’s second victory came just 40 days after an emergency appendectomy after his appendix burst while he was on a training run. Yet, he blew the rest of the field away, finishing in an Olympic record time more than 4 minutes ahead of the silver medallist.