1500m and the mile · 1990s–2004
Hicham El Guerrouj
Records that have stood since the nineties, built by a man who lost the two races he wanted most.
The records
3:26.00 for 1500m in Rome in 1998, and 3:43.13 for the mile in Rome the following year. Both still stand. In a sport where records usually fall inside a decade, that is close to unheard of.
Two Olympics that went wrong
At Atlanta in 1996 he fell in the 1500m final. At Sydney in 2000 he was beaten into second by Noah Ngeny. He was the best miler alive for most of a decade and the Olympic title kept not happening, in public, twice.
Athens
In 2004 he won the 1500m, and then came back and won the 5000m as well. Two golds in one Games, at 29, after eight years of being asked about the ones he did not win.
The method
He did not get to those times by aiming at them. Years of staged, measurable targets, each one built on the last. Ambition broken into steps, which is what a sixteen-week block is too, only shorter.
Break the unreasonable goal into a line of ordinary ones, and keep showing up after the public failures.
All 26 case studies. Profiles are factual and drawn from the public record. Where a performance carries an asterisk, this app says so rather than leaving it out.