Posted: August 25, 2005

Athletics: With Renewed Confidence, Ramzi Returns

From David Monti

© 2005 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

By Bob Ramsak

BRUSSELS -- After a brief respite following his historic double middle distance win at the world championships, Rachid Ramzi returns to action, topping the bill in tomorrow night’s 1500 meter field at the Memorial Van Damme. And despite the fatigue brought on by six difficult races in an eight day span, the 25-year-old Bahraini is ready.

"I feel more confident in myself and in my ability to run and to compete," Ramzi said of his double victory in Helsinki, the first-ever of its kind at a world championship.

Speaking through his manager, John Nubani, who acted as translator, Ramzi admitted that he left the Finnish capital physically drained, but is hardly ready to call it a season.

"After the world championships, I’m very tired," he said. "I didn’t expect to be this tired." In his Brussels outing, his primary objective he said is to win; a fast time, perhaps an assault on his 3:30.00 personal best, is secondary. "Most important right now is to maintain my winning streak."

While much of the world was surprised with his Helsinki double, Ramzi clearly was not.

"I wasn’t surprised that I won [the 1500], but it was more of a surprise that I was now the world champion." In the 800, he said, it wasn’t until after the second round that he began to feel that he could take the title. "If I would run the way I wanted to, I felt that I could win that race." He eventually improved his personal best twice in Helsinki, first to 1:44.30 in his semi and again to 1:44.24 in the final.

The shorter event, he now admits, is his favorite of the two.

"It’s a little easier," he said, letting a small smile escape from his usually reserved nature. Competitively however, he won’t play favorites, choosing instead to contest each equally in upcoming seasons. He has a pair of 800 races coming up --in Rieti, Italy this Sunday and again next Sunday at Berlin’s ISTAF Golden League fixture-- in order to collect enough points in the event to gain entry into next month’s World Athletics Final where he hopes to double.

His freedom today to pick and choose events must seem like a lifetime away from his modest beginnings as an athlete.

A promising athlete as a teenager in his native Morocco, Ramzi, then competing as Rashid Khoula, was a silver medallist in the 1500 at the 1999 African Junior Championships. As an aspiring runner, he was well aware of the feats of Nourredine Morceli, Said Aouita and Hicham El Guerrouj.

"Growing up as kids, it’s always been an Arab that’s been very successful," he said. "So we know the 1500, we know the history of the 1500. It’s very important to us."

But living off of dreams didn’t pay the bills. Unable to find gainful employment at home, he followed a friend’s advice and moved to Bahrain at the end of 2001, entered the armed forces and gained citizenship.

Still a full-service member of the Bahraini military --he served as a member of the Palace guard when he emigrated-- he now serves in a branch where he is considered a full-time athlete for the country, a situation that has its benefits.

"When they saw the talent he was, they allowed him to train outside of Bahrain," Nubani said. Indeed, with the extremely hot winters there, training outside of his adopted home is an absolute necessity, and he now spends much of the year training with a group of six to eight runners at altitude in the Atlas Mountains.

He made his first major splash at the 2004 world indoor championships with his silver medal-winning performance in the 800 meters. The following spring and summer he made an amazing breakthrough, taking his personal best from a modest 3:39.30 to 3:30.25. At Rome’s Golden Gala that year, he was the first of a parade of runners who ended Hicham El Guerrouj’s 29-race win streak. But in Athens, he didn’t advance past the semi-finals, a disappointment that weighed heavily on shoulders since.

"In Athens, I was really ready to win the 1500," he said, "and I didn’t make it. So that really pushed me to complete the double in Helsinki."

But that stunning performance, the first double win of its kind at a major championship since the 1964 Olympic Games, did raise some eyebrows in Helsinki, perhaps predictable in today’s climate of suspicion. Yet Ramzi has hardly escaped the testing squads this year. According to his coach, three-time world and Olympic 5000 meter medallist Khalid Boulami, he was tested twice out-of-competition while training in Morocco, again following his 800 meter victory in Lausanne and his world-leading 1500 win in Rome, provided blood and urine samples upon arrival in Helsinki, and was tested again following each of his world championship victories.

The magnitude of his achievement has yet to fully hit home for Ramzi, who struggles to find an appropriate answer when asked.

"When I’m sitting by myself at the end of the season, I might think about it," he said. "But I’ll still be thinking more about the future, about my next goals. Not about what I’ve already done."