Google’s daily doodle at the top of its search engine has an African theme today, honouring Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila. Apparently, he would have been 81 today and no doubt as thrilled to see a picture of himself on a search engine as he was the day that he became the first athlete to win Olympic gold twice for the long distance race in 1964.

And he did it barefoot. Just over a month after having his appendix taken out. And he broke the world record. And they really don’t don’t make them like that any more.

Bikila passed away at the age of just 41, after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage brought on by an earlier accident. Emporer Haile Selassie attended his funeral along with 75,000 other people.