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Abebe Bikila
Abebe Bikila won the marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics running entirely barefoot, having been unable to find running shoes that fit comfortably before the race, and his victory made him the first Black African athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, a historically significant breakthrough for African Olympic representation. His winning route passed directly beneath the Arch of Constantine, an ancient Roman monument, giving his historic barefoot victory a striking visual backdrop that became one of the most iconic images in Olympic marathon history. Bikila successfully defended his Olympic marathon title at the 1964 Tokyo Games, becoming the first runner in Olympic history to win the marathon twice, this time wearing shoes and remarkably competing just weeks after an appendectomy. His combination of a historic barefoot Olympic victory and his subsequent successful title defense has made Bikila one of the most historically significant marathon runners ever, and his breakthrough helped establish Ethiopia's now-sustained tradition of distance-running excellence.
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Eliud Kipchoge
Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon distance in under two hours, completing the specially organized INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna in 2019, though the run's use of rotating pacers and other conditions meant it wasn't recognized as an official world record. His official marathon world record, set at the Berlin Marathon, along with his Olympic gold medals in the marathon at both the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Olympics, established Kipchoge as the most statistically dominant marathon runner of his generation across both record-setting time trials and championship racing. His famously disciplined, monk-like training philosophy and personal motto "no human is limited" reflected a broader mental approach that Kipchoge has credited as central to his sustained excellence across more than a decade at the sport's highest level. His combination of the historic sub-two-hour marathon run and his sustained dominance across official world records and Olympic competition has made Kipchoge the runner most universally regarded as the greatest marathoner in the sport's history.
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