This caught my eye as it was his anniversary of winning the Gold Medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics in the Marathon. Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia competed in both the Rome and the subsequent 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He ended up doing the Rome marathon barefoot after being a last minute replacement and the sponsor running out of footwear, so there was none for him! He became the first from the African sub-continent to win an Olympic god medal. He passed away in 1973 at the age of 41 from the complications he got from injuries following a motor vehicle accident. In Addis Ababa their is a stadium named after him.