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El Guerrouj winning again
07/07/2004 12:07 - (SA)
Lausanne - Four-time 1 500m world champion Hicham El Guerrouj put last week's first defeat since the 2000 Sydney Olympics behind him by winning the event at the IAAF Super Grand Prix here on Tuesday.
El Guerrouj's bid for Olympic gold was knocked off course on Friday when he placed eighth in the Golden League meet in Rome and later complained of breathing problems.
But the 28-year-old got back to winning ways here despite being pushed hard by Kenyan Isaac Songok.
The world record holder easily dominated the early part of the race before being caught at the 500m mark by Songok who even overtook the middle distance great 50m from the line.
A late sprint gave El Guerrouj a win in a modest time of 3min 32.20sec with Songok timing 3:32.22.
"I've found my smile again. It was important to win. I know what my problems are and my lack of rythm," said the Moroccan, who plans to run in London or Stockholm before Zurich on August 6.
"I was surprised to see the Kenyan coming back. It would have been a disaster if I'd lost," said El Guerrouj. "This win will give me confidence and I'm going to target the 3min 30sec mark in Zurich.
Since 1995, El Guerrouj had only previously lost twice over 1 500m - in the Olympic finals of 1996 and 2000.
However, Mozambique's Maria Mutola, the reigning Olympic and world 800m champion suffered her first defeat since July 2002 when she came second to Russian Svetlana Cherkasova.
Cherkasova timed 1:58.91 to end the 36-race winning streak of Mutola, who clocked 1:59.06.
Allen Johnson produced the best 110m hurdles performance of the year in 13.05sec, before heading back to the United States for their Olympic trials.
Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic timed 47.86sec to achieve his 37th consecutive win since in the 400m hurdles, while Russian Tatian Lebedeva showed that she is closing in on the world triple jump record of 15.50m by jumping to victory in 15.33.
- AFP
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