IN HIS apartment at his training camp in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Hicham El Guerrouj has film footage of Paavo Nurmi’s 1,500 and 5,000 metres double at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. It is a double that El Guerrouj will be seeking to complete tonight and, if he is successful, he would be the first athlete to accomplish it since Nurmi.
While the flying Finn’s famous feat of 80 years ago is in part the inspiration behind El Guerrouj’s double attempt, it is the events of last summer that will be uppermost in his mind today as he prepares for the 5,000 metres final. At the World Championships in Paris a year ago, El Guerrouj made the mistake of watching the wrong man.
Kenenisa Bekele, the young Ethiopian who has stepped into Haile Gebrselassie’s shoes and is finding them a comfortable fit, is attempting a double, too. Bekele won the 10,000 metres eight days ago and now he and El Guerrouj, who secured his first Olympic title on Tuesday, are meeting each other halfway. But the athlete who beat them both to the world title last year in Paris is back to cause more problems.
It was out of a different part of Africa, from neither Morocco nor Ethiopia, that the champion emerged 12 months ago. Eliud Kipchoge, from Kenya, who was still a junior at 18, won in a dip finish after El Guerrouj had made a run for home from 800 metres out. It was an unusual tactic, given that the Moroccan was the 1,500 metres champion and Bekele the 10,000 metres gold medal-winner. Usually the shorter-distance man waits to take advantage of the sprint.
El Guerrouj led into the finishing straight but it was Kipchoge who had timed the run to perfection, the Moroccan having to settle for second place and Bekele for third. Kipchoge recorded 12min 52.79sec, faster than the winning time from any World Championships or Olympics, with the next five athletes joining him by breaking 13 minutes. All six are in the final tonight.
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While Bekele, 22, has broken Gebrselassie’s 5,000 metres world record this year, El Guerrouj arrived here without having raced the distance all season. Abdelkader Kada, El Guerrouj’s coach, set him a training programme that concentrated on the 1,500 metres. It was this way because El Guerrouj, despite being world champion and world record-holder, had never won the Olympic title.
El Guerrouj has conducted little 5,000 metres preparation. “In the 5,000, I feel like a teenager who has just learnt to drive,” he said. But can he park alongside Nurmi in Olympic history tonight?