Abebe Bikila was the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal, running barefoot in Rome in 1960 and won again wearing shoes in Tokyo in 1964, when he became the first person to win the Olympic marathon twice. Born into bitter poverty in rural Ethiopia in 1932, at sixteen Bikila joined the Imperial Guard of the Emperor Haile Selassie. It was there that he came to the notice of the Swedish athletics coach Onni Niskanen, whom Selassie hired to raise Ethiopia's profile through sport. Bikila became the focus of these ambitions - and an unwitting figurehead for black African nationalism, which saw him implicated in a failed coup against Selassie, sentenced to death and eventually pardoned following Niskanen's intervention. Despite an attack of appendicitis, Bikila recovered in time to win the Olympic marathon once again. Bikila died in 1973.