Interesting, from Running Times online…
A Brief History of Barefoot Running
Minimalist shoes and barefoot running has been a strategy of champions for decades
By Roger Robinson
As featured in the April 2011 issue of Running Times Magazine
Rome, Sept. 10, 1960: Starting line of the Olympic Marathon -- The three New Zealanders, Jeff Julian, Barry Magee and Ray Puckett, nervously await the starting gun. Standing next to them they notice an unknown African runner with a skeletal figure and no shoes. "Oh, well, that's one we can beat, anyway," Puckett says.
The African was Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia. His bare feet skimmed over the hot streets of Rome that night to give him the Olympic gold medal in a world-record 2:15:16.2. Magee was third. "It was amazing that Bikila was standing right next to us on the line," Magee told me late last year. Puckett's ill-fated remark has become urban legend. David Maraniss's book Rome 1960 wrongly attributes it to a member of the American team.
Bikila's gold medal in Rome is the most famous barefoot victory in modern running history, but far from the only one. Bare feet were not invented in 2009, and have been the footwear of choice for many top and other runners long before the current fashion.
Read on here.
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