The legendary Ethiopian runner ran a blazing time of 2 hours, 12 minutes and 11 seconds on his way to a gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics.

Bikila dominated the rest of the field, with Britain, Basil Heatley coming in second, roughly 4 minutes behind. With this win, he became the first athlete to win the Olympic marathon twice.

4 years earlier, in 1960, Bikila became the first in a long line of gold medalists from the distance running world of East Africa.

He wasn’t expected to even run at the Olympics due to an appendectomy that he had undergone just 40 days earlier.

Unlike his barefoot performance in 1960, he switched things up, running in shoes and sticking behind 10K bronze medalist, Australian Ron Clarke. Clarke flew through the 5K in 15:06.

Just before the 13 mile mark, Bikila began to pull away, finishing 4 minutes and 7 seconds clear of the field. Previous world record holder, Basil Heatley got the silver medal with a time of 2:16:18.