Athletics: Double Olympic champion retires

CASABLANCA - Morocco's Olympic 5000 and 1500m champion Hicham El Guerrouj today announced his retirement from all athletics.

"I am quitting competition," a tearful El Guerrouj told a news conference.

"I hope the authorities and Moroccan athletes will continue to work so Moroccan athletics continues to be strong," he said.

The 31-year-old, considered the greatest 1500m runner in history, has not competed since the 2004 Athens Games.

He missed last season with a virus and pulled out of March's indoor world championships in Moscow with a back injury.

El Guerrouj's retirement was widely expected in Morocco after he told local reporters in March that he spent sleepless nights pondering his future out of athletics.

The Moroccan holds the world record of three minutes 26.0 seconds for the 1500 and has won the world title over the distance four times. He also has the world marks for the mile (3min 43.13)sec and 2000m (4min 44.79sec).

His 1500-5000 double in Athens was the first since Finn Paavo Nurmi in 1924 and exorcised the demons from his previous Olympic appearances.

At the 1996 Atlanta Games, El Guerrouj fell at the bell and four years later in Sydney he was outsprinted by Kenyan Noah Ngeny.

But in Athens, El Guerrouj confirmed his greatness in emphatic fashion.

He won the 1500m final in style, pouncing at 800 and holding off Kenyan rival Bernard Lagat. Four days later, he won the most eagerly awaited track clash of the Games in the 5000 against Ethiopia's 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele.

El Guerrouj won the first of his four world titles in 1997, also in Athens, ending Algerian Noureddine Morceli's six-year reign as champion.

He shattered Morceli's 1500 world record by over a second a year later and became practically unbeatable over the distance until suffering a shock defeat in Rome in July 2004.

The Moroccan finished eighth on the track where he had set his 1,500 and mile world records for only his fourth loss in eight years, two of which were at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

El Guerrouj said his form had been affected by breathing problems but he appeared to have put his health problems behind him at the Olympics.

- REUTERS