2003 Season
At the Sydney Olympics, El Guerrouj was favourite to take gold but finished second in the 1500 metres, behind Noah Ngeny, a talented Kenyan runner at the peak of his career who had run as El Guerrouj's pacemaker when El Guerrouj ran his 1500m world record in Rome in 1998.
El Guerrouj defended his 1500 m title in the 2001 and 2003 World Championships and came close to breaking his own 1500 m record in Brussels in 2001 with a time of 3:26.12. He also won 3 consecutive IAAF Golden League prizes in 2001, 2002 and 2003. He was the only middle distance athlete to produce the winning streak necessary to be entitled for a share of the jackpot of 50 kilograms (1,608 troy ounces) of gold (2000–2002) or USD 1 million (1998–1999, 2003–present). He remains the only athlete to have won it three times in a row.
In 2003, El Guerrouj set a personal best of 12:50.24 in the 5000 metres. Later in the year, at the World Track & Field Championships, he finished a close second to Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge in the 5000 meters, adding a silver to the gold he had previously won in the 1500 meters.
Read more about this topic: Hicham El Guerrouj, 2000 Sydney Olympics
Famous quotes containing the word season:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)