El Guerrouj defeats the enemy within

ATHLETICS: Ian O'Riordan revisits the 1,500 metres final at the Athens Olympic Games, when one of the great milers exorcised his inner demons to win gold

Possibly the best explanation of why people run was once offered by the great American miler Glenn Cunningham. It is the most revealing of any sport, he said, even if it lacks the sight and thrill of body contact.

For Cunningham, the conflict in running was more raw and challenging than any man-against-man competition. In running, it was man against himself, the cruellest of opponents. The other runners are not real enemies. His adversary lies within him, in his ability, through mind and heart, to control and master himself and his emotions.

I was thinking of Glenn Cunningham on the morning of August 24th. One of the many joys of covering the Athens Olympics was the late scheduling of the track and field finals, which allowed you to lounge around in the sun all afternoon thinking about what to write about that night.

And to me only one event mattered on that Tuesday - the men's 1,500 metres final. All because of Hicham El Guerrouj, the Moroccan who fell in the 1996 final in Atlanta, then finished second four years ago in Sydney. It seemed his quest to finally strike gold had now captured the attention of all of Athens.

But sitting by a fountain outside the Olympic Stadium, I couldn't help but realise that you don't always get what you deserve in the Olympics. It was the day after Sonia O'Sullivan had been lapped by the entire field in her 5,000 metres final. And two days after Paula Radcliffe had dropped out of the marathon.

So I started thinking about all the great milers who never won the Olympic 1,500 metres. I took out a list of world mile record holders and there they were - Cunningham being the first of them, and then Roger Bannister, John Landy, Jim Ryun, Filbert Bayi, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram.

They all had their reasons for not winning Olympic 1,500-metre gold, but Cunningham somehow reminded me most of El Guerrouj. Known as the Kansas Flyer, at the age of eight he'd suffered severe leg burns in a schoolhouse fire that killed his older brother, Floyd. Doctors said he might never walk again, but instead his mother encouraged him to get back running.

Cunningham went to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and, although suffering from a bad case of tonsillitis, was just edged out of medals in the homestretch and ended up fourth. Two years later he broke the world record for the mile, running 4:06.7, but still failed to strike gold in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where New Zealand's Jack Lovelock needed a world record to beat him.

Then aged 26, Cunningham had every reason to believe his chance would come again four years later. But the outbreak of the second World War meant there were no more Olympics until 1948, by which time Cunningham had retired. Probably the greatest miler of the 1930s, Cunningham died in March, 1988, aged 78. No less than El Guerrouj, he deserved to be Olympic champion.

Inside the Olympic Stadium, I began writing those names into my laptop. Great milers who failed to win the Olympic 1,500-metre title. It just seemed El Guerrouj was destined to join them.

At 29, he'd won four consecutive World Championships, held seven of the 10 fastest times in the 1,500 metres and mile - including, of course, the world records - and yet there he was on the starting line, and all I could see was another ghost of defeat howling in the bones of his face.

He looked far too nervous, barely able to breathe, blessing himself repeatedly and at one stage apparently drying his eyes.

He shook hands with the athlete next to him, Bernard Lagat of Kenya. Just over two weeks ago Lagat had quite easily beaten El Guerrouj down the homestretch at the Zurich Golden League . . .

He looks around and sees 11 other runners who all believe they can beat him. Earlier in the season they'd seen him finish a humiliated eighth in the Rome Golden League. He definitely wasn't the unbeatable athlete that Kenya's Noah Ngeny had gunned down in Sydney four years ago.

A pistol shot and then the stadium erupts - briefly. A false start, just to add to the tension, which by now must be unbearable for El Guerrouj. So they go again, and this time his eight years of waiting is finally over. His fate now lies in three and three-quarter laps of the track.

Typical of El Guerrouj, he settles near the front, while careful not to push the pace just yet. Kenya's Isaac Songok takes them around the first lap in 60.42 seconds, practically ideal. When, like El Guerrouj, you run 10 miles every day before breakfast this is merely an extension of the warm-up.

But it's the interval sessions that have made El Guerrouj the supreme miler of his generation, such as 20 times 300 metres in 45 seconds. So he canters around another 300 metres, and then hits the front. There are 800 metres left to race and El Guerrouj has 11 of the world's best 1,500-metres runners in chase, but there'll be no more slowing down.

What he did over those closing 800 metres was possibly the greatest example of self-pacemaking in the history of distance running. He ran each subsequent 100-metre stretch marginally faster: 14.4 seconds to 800 metres, then 13.8 to 900 metres, then 13.4, 13.3, 12.9, 12.8, and a 12.7 to take him to 1,400 metres - or 100 metres left to go.

His only problem then was that Lagat was edging onto his shoulder. Coming down the home stretch, the Kenyan started to pass him, and it was like Sydney all over again. With that, El Guerrouj embodied Cunningham's definition of running and started to fight not Lagat, but that adversary within him, where destiny said he would be another great miler not to win the Olympic title. He fought that adversary and won - by 0.12 of a second.

Just four days later El Guerrouj won his second gold medal in the 5,000 metres, beating the 10,000-metre champion Kenenisa Bekele. That perhaps was his crowning moment, but four months after Athens, the 1,500 metres is still glowing most brilliantly.

Without doubt the most unforgettable race of the year.