Word: guerrouj
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...seem near unbeatable. Maria Mutola of Mozambique is undefeated this year at 800 m. Mexican 400-m runner Ana Guevara hasn't lost since August 2001. Felix Sánchez of the Dominican Republic has won his last 22 races in the 400-m hurdles. And Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, the three-time defending champion at 1,500 m, feels so good at that distance, he says, that "my goals are to win the 1,500 m and take a medal in the 5,000 m." He'd be the first ever to do the medal double at Worlds...
...with 24 medals at the World Championships in Edmonton. The men took every distance race from 1,500 m up while the continent's women notched victories at 400 m, 800 m, 10,000 m, 400-m hurdles and the high jump. Outstanding was Morocco's Hicham el Guerrouj, who claimed his 51st win in 53 finals...
Apart from cinder tracks turning synthetic, training has changed a little since Sir Roger's day. While he packed his into half-hour sessions of 440-yd. repetitions, El Guerrouj reels out a total of 5 hr. a day at a high-altitude camp at Ifrane, in Morocco's Atlas Mountains, wearing to exhaustion a series of rabbits that try to keep up with him. His coach, Abdelkader Kada, has said, "He needs a coach to tell him he is doing too much, not too little...
Since Atlanta in 1996, only two clouds have loomed between El Guerrouj and 1,500-m gold. The first is that he might repeat Atlanta. There, just as he was planning to pass the great Morceli on the last lap, the Algerian's heel and his own knee met. El Guerrouj crashed to the track, and then staggered home last. He beat Morceli in Milan only a month later, but "l'accident" is a ghost that he must exorcise in Sydney. "Hicham needs that medal," says a member of the Moroccan track federation. "He can't miss this. Psychologically...
...late King Hassan II was on the track-side cell phone to console El Guerrouj in Atlanta. Hassan also helped him out on a more delicate matter. El Guerrouj's Achilles' heel, so to speak, is hemorrhoids. The King recommended a doctor and sent his private jet to take El Guerrouj to him. Of course, he could have afforded to get there himself. His lungs and legs earn him about $2 million a year. But when a mere mortal is up there with NASA or Boeing, well, you roll out the royal red carpet...