Siraj Gena of Ethiopia sprinted barefoot to the finish line to win the Rome marathon on Sunday, pulling away from two Kenyan rivals near the end. Gena was paying homage to Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, winner of the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome after running the entire course shoeless. "I felt I had to do something to honor Bikila," Gena told . "For me he will always be an enormous inspiration and today I wanted to see what it would be like to cross the line in Rome barefoot like he once did." «300 meters before the finish people was yelling at me to discard my shoes... winning while hearing our music and in bare feet was a one-off thrill» (ADNkronos)http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/News/S...me-Abebe-emozione-irripetibile_153712747.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQmqEIYI-GU"]YouTube- Olympics Olimpiadi Roma 1960 - Maratona 2 parte the comment at 0:56: «Abebe caresses the asphalt. Rhadi hammers it with increasingly heavy steps» http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/97913209/AFP
You mean this guy ran a marathon barefoot on a whim? That's amazing. Alive or dead, Abede Bikila had better appreciate the tribute.
Ohhhhhh, okay. Still, nice flourish. I feel sorry for whoever had to pick up his shoes, though. After twenty-six miles, they must have been smelling pretty rank.
i can remember watching that race when i was a kid.they didn't cover the marathon as they do now they just showed partd of the race but i remember bikila running barefoot through the streets of rome.it is whar inspired me to take up distance raceing.i ran cross country barefoot but i wore shoes forroad races but i did run barefoot sometimes for jogging on roads.it wasn't too bad.and i remember hearing about runners running barefoot in winter...i would add bikila also won the olympic marathon four years later in tokyo.
man, last week I had to make a big 24h rush to Milan to deliver some important papers to the palace of justice (the heart of the beast) and I departed shod because btw I needed at least partially formal dress and definitely *not* being labeled 'nutcase' before audition. six hours traveling and i had to close shoes and socks in the bathroom to survive the night (well, night... three hours of sleep) . i thought about the option of tossing them out of the window. next day i put them stinky crisp rags back on and after another full day around the temple of injustice my socks turned right into mass destruction weapons. oh, now I recall all the tons of exotic soaps and alchemical foot powders my feet consumed before turning bare.
