Abstract
In the context of a global history, this article proposes to study the life and sports work of the marathon runner Abebe Bikila in the light of the socio-cultural transformations of the 1960s. To do this, the study borrows from a wide range of secondary sources, the period press, as well as the archives of the International Olympic Committee. It is structured around three scales of analysis: the individual and his network; nations and their identities; Olympism and globalization. The Ethiopian then appeared as the symbol of a new Olympic order, driven by the densification of cultural exchanges/transfers, the affirmation of renewed national identities and the internationalisation of the IOC. As such, the history of Abebe Bikila - an athlete and witness of his time - is also that of an accelerated cultural globalization at the dawn of the Second Twentieth Century.