Ahmed El Ouafi Boughéra

Biography

Ahmed El Ouafi Boughéra (Arabic: أحمد بوقرة الوافي‎) is a French athlete and worker born October 15, 1898 in Ouled Djellal in Algeria and died October 18, 1959 in Saint-Denis in France. In 1928, he became the first indigenous African athlete to win an Olympic medal and even more so to be an Olympic champion by winning the marathon at the Summer Games in Amsterdam. His career made him a “symbol of the athlete forgotten by history” . Ahmed Boughera El Ouafi joins the French army and crosses the Mediterranean to participate in the Great War. In 1923, a lieutenant, having noticed his athletic talents, offered him the opportunity to take part in his first long-distance race, during which he distinguished himself. Very quickly, he progressed through the events, becoming French marathon champion in 1924, before participating in the Paris Olympic Games the same year and finishing seventh in the main event in 2 hours and 54 minutes. As the International Colonial Exhibition looms in Paris, the ...