Shambel Abebe Bikila was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He was the first Ethiopian Olympic gold medalist, winning his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal, making him the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time. Abebe Bikila (Ethiopia) set the men's marathon world record of 2:15:16.2 in Rome Olympics, Italy on September 10, 1960. It stood 2.4 years, until Toru Terasawa's 2:15:15.8 on February 17, 1963. Wiki link