Hicham El Guerrouj

Hicham El Guerrouj was born September 14, 1974 in Berkane, Morocco. He started running as a teenager, inspired by countryman Said Aouita who had won 5000m Olympic gold for Morocco in 1984. By 1995 El Guerrouj was on the senior Moroccan team. By 1996 he was favored for Olympic 1500m gold in Atlanta — and that race would become the defining moment of his early career, but not in the way he had hoped.

In the Atlanta 1500m final, with 400 meters to go, he was moving into position behind world champion Noureddine Morceli of Algeria when his knee clipped Morceli’s heel. Morceli stumbled. El Guerrouj lost his balance and crashed to the track. He finished the race in last place. Backstage, weeping, he received a phone call from King Hassan II of Morocco, who told him: “Do not cry. You are a champion in the eyes of the Moroccan people.” El Guerrouj framed a photo of himself crying that day in Atlanta and hung it on his bedroom wall. He told reporters later: “After the call from His Majesty, it was another El Guerrouj who was born.”

Over the next four years he lost a single race. Between Atlanta and the Sydney Olympics in 2000 he won 45 of 46 races at 1500 meters and the mile. He set the 1500m world record at 3:26.00 in Rome in July 1998 — a record that would stand for 25 years before Jakob Ingebrigtsen ran 3:25.93 in 2024. He set the mile world record at 3:43.13 in Rome in July 1999, beaten in second place by Noah Ngeny in 3:43.40 — both inside the previous record. Ngeny would defeat El Guerrouj in the Sydney Olympic 1500m final the following year, leaving him with another agonizing silver and another four years to wait.

At the Athens 2004 Olympics, six weeks short of his 30th birthday, El Guerrouj raced Bernard Lagat in the 1500m final and won by 0.12 seconds. He dropped to the track, kissed it, wept. Four nights later he ran the 5000m and won that too — becoming the first man in 80 years, since Paavo Nurmi in 1924, to win both events at the same Olympics. Over a nine-year career he raced 86 finals at 1500m and the mile and won 83 of them. His mile record at 3:43.13 has now stood unbroken for 26 years. Only five men in history have come within three seconds of it.