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Conquest complete

REUTERS/AFP, Athens
Throughout the chilly Moroccan winter one dre-am burned bri-ght for Hicham El Guerrouj as he trained in the thin air of the Atlas mountains.
Tuesday, August 24, represented the 29-year-old's last realistic chance of the Olympic 1,500 gold which would confirm he is the finest middle distance runner in history.
The four-times world champion and world record holder rose to the challenge. Striding to the front after 800 metres he held off Kenyan Bernard Lagat to win the Olympic title at his third attempt.
He took 3min 34.18sec to fulfill a promise he had made to his baby daughter Hiba while rocking her in her cot.
On winning a gaunt-looking El Guerrouj held his hands to his face before falling to his knees on the ground and weeping with relief and joy.
Getting to his feet he went over and hugged his baby girl, born earlier this year and to whom he had pledged the gold medal.
"This is the type of test that makes a great athlete," El Guerrouj said after an emotional victory lap wrapped in the Moroccan flag. "I have come back through my will power and the help of those around me."
Three races embellish the Olympic track programme, each with their special challenges.
The 100 metres is an exhibition of pure speed with the winner traditionally acclaimed as the world's fastest man. At the other extreme the marathon is the ultimate test of endurance.
In the middle the 1,500 metres provides the perfect balance of speed, stamina and intelligence, qualities El Guerrouj possesses in abundance.
"The 1,500 is still the biggest, although the 100 metres is closing the
gap," Britain's twice Olympic champion Seb Coe said this week.
Despite his consecutive gold medals, Coe believes El Guerrouj is the best runner ever over 1,500, or its imperial equivalent the mile.
Coe, whose career was interrupted by illness and injury, never won a world title. Australian Herb Elliott, who broke the world record in the 1960 Rome Olympic final never had the opportunity.
Conquest
FROM PAGE 13
Nor did New Zealander Peter Snell, who took the world record from Elliott and went on to complete the 800-1,500 double at the 1964 Tokyo Games.
Roger Bannister, who this year celebrated the 50th anniversary of his epic 1954 feat when he became the first man to run the mile in under four minutes, signals out Elliott and El Guerrouj for special praise.
Then there is the little Algerian Noureddine Morceli, who dominated the event in the early 1990s and won the 1996 Atlanta Games title after El Guerrouj fell just before the bell.
El Guerrouj now sets his sights on the 5,000, second half of demanding double which has been completed only once, by the flying Finn Paavo Nurmi in 1924.
"I came from very far down," El Guerrouj said on Tuesday. "You might say I'm very deserving, maybe because I've had a very difficult time between Atlanta and today.
"Now I've come to a city where the Games were revived in 1896 and it's history that is being recorded here."