PARIS, July 25 - Four-time world champion Hicham El Guerrouj has pulled out of next month’s world championships in Helsinki and says he will wrap up his glittering career in 2006.
The Moroccan, 31 in September, pulled off a sensational 1500-5000 metre double at last year’s Athens Olympics when he became the first man since Paavo Nurmi in 1924 to win both events at one Games.
El Guerrouj had failed in two previous heartbreaking Olympic bids for the 1500m, winning silver in Sydney in 2000.
But he has been unable to get back to full-time training since Athens and a virus in May caused further disruption and forced him to pull out of the Nehgelo meeting in the Netherlands and Eugene in the United States.
And when I returned to Ilfrane it was as if the engine was broken,'' he told French sports daily l'Equipe. Physically I was fine but I simply didn’t have the heart.’’
He said a never-ending series of public appearances after his Athens triumph had taken its toll.
I was always being invited. It was exhausting. I tried to get back into training but it was hard. I haven’t had a break in 10 years.’’
He plans to resume training in August and run again in 2006 before hanging up his spikes.
``I’ve got nothing to prove. Everything I do next year will be a bonus,’’ he said.
He named Portugal’s Olympic bronze medallist Rui Silva as his favourite to succeed him in Helsinki but believed Ukraine’s Ivan Heshko and Kenya’s Komen Kipchirchir, who has emerged this year, were in the running for the world title.
El Guerrouij won the 1500m world title in 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003. He was silver medallist in 1995 and also won the 5,000m silver medal in 2003.
His 3min 26sec run in 1988 still stands as the world 1500m record.