Third Time’s The Charm

“Never never never give up.” Hicham El Guerrouj likes to quote Winston Churchill’s famous words. But the Moroccan runner almost did give up — and who could blame him? El Guerrouj had been to the Olympics twice as the favorite in the 1,500 m, a race that requires endurance and finishing speed. Both times, the world-record holder practically had a gold medal engraved with his name before the Games; both times, he lost. In 1996, he tripped and fell on the final lap, finishing last. In 2000, Kenya’s Noah Ngeny pipped him at the line, snatching the gold by 0.15 of a second. In Atlanta, he says, “I was too young,” but in Sydney, he was ready to win. Instead, as Ngeny took his victory lap, El Guerrouj was doubled up in pain worse than he’d ever felt in a decade of hard training. He wept and wept.

Tears of joy finally came in Athens. On Aug. 24, he won that elusive 1,500-m gold, outsprinting Kenya’s Bernard Lagat. He danced a jig, and dedicated his win to his infant daughter Hiba and to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. Four days later, the 29-year-old won the 5,000 m, becoming the first man to do the double since Finnish legend Paavo Nurmi in 1924. “There is a reason for everything in life,” El Guerrouj says. “God helped me keep faith in my ability to win those gold medals. And if I did not win in Atlanta and Sydney, it was probably to make the two victories in Athens even nicer.”

It’s easy for him to be philosophical now, but there were moments this year when he doubted if he’d even make it to Athens. Allergies disrupted his training. At a July 2 meet, on the same Rome track where he’d set the world record of 3 min. 26 sec. in 1998, he lost the 1,500 m for the first time since Sydney. Dismayed, he decided “that if I did not run sub-3:30 by the beginning of August, then it was not worth going to Greece.” On July 31, he ran it in 3 min. 29.18 sec.

Now he feels as if he can not just run but also fly. “I am still on a cloud,” he says. When he got home, the King awarded him one of Morocco’s highest honors, the Cordon de Commandeur; El Guerrouj calls it his “third gold.” He’s also thrilled to be a role model to young Moroccans. “I am happy if I can bring children to do sport, especially running,” he says — after all, the last Moroccan to win the 5,000 m, Said Aouita in 1984, was his hero and inspiration. He cares, too, about young people’s overall well-being. As a goodwill ambassador for unicef, the new dad will be working this fall on an early-childhood campaign, educating other Moroccan parents about how to give their youngsters a healthy start to life.

El Guerrouj says he’s stopped sleeping with his two golds, but he’s thinking about defending them. Before Athens, he said, “It will be my last Olympics, I hope.” Now he’s wondering whether he spoke too soon. “I would love to be [in Beijing in 2008] because I love running. I don’t know if my body or my head will follow,” he says, before adding three words that will surely disappoint all the runners who have spent years in his wake. “I will try.”