Word: races
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Bikila's triumph was all the more stunning because it happened in the capital of Ethiopia's former military occupier. Legend has it that he made his decisive move in the race just as he passed the Axum Obelisk, a towering stela that Mussolini had brought back from Ethiopia as war loot. Four years later in Tokyo, Bikila won gold again, the first man to defend his Olympic marathon title. This time he wore shoes...
...vignettes. The book, just out in paperback, makes liberal use of fictionalizing devices - interior monologues, imagined conversations - that render it less reliable as a historical account, but help to capture the drama of Bikila's life. It's hard to read Rambali's well-paced description of the Rome race without a rush of excitement...
...knows Africa well, offers us plenty of solid reporting, his account struggles to overcome the dearth of rich source material even as it gets bogged down in some of the details the author has managed to dig up. At its best - in Judah's description of the Rome race, and in providing context that explains the wider importance of Bikila's victory - the book is a valuable addition to the history of running and Africa. But if you're comfortable with a biographer cutting some corners and finessing some facts, then Rambali's book is by far the more inspiring...
...front of a giant TV screen outside the court in Pietermaritzburg. The hearing is expected to last two days, but the case itself will most likely drag on well beyond next April's elections - in which Zuma, having trounced current president Thabo Mbeki in a head-to-head race for leadership of the ruling African National Congress, looks primed to be elected president. (The ANC faces no serious challenge to its electoral majority...
...case, the new pace was overdue. In a race in which the Republican convention wraps up on September 4 and the election comes 60 days later, it was time to get things moving...