El Guerrouj
El Guerrouj (Hicham El Guerrouj) (b. September 14, 1974, Berkane). Dominant middle distance runner of the late 1990s. Born in Morocco, El Guerrouj won two 1500 meter championships at the IAAF World Championships, one in 1997 and the other in 1999. He held three world records, in the 1500 and 2000 meters and in the mile. He became interested in racing as a child after being inspired by countryman Said Aouita’s win in the 5,000 meters during the 1984 Olympics. El Guerrouj capped his career by winning the 1500 and 5000 meters at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.Hicham El Guerrouj's first international triumph was in 1992, when he took 3rd in the 5000 meters of the 1992 Junior World Championships in Seoul, behind Haile Gebreselassie of Ethiopia.
In 1994, he was a member of the Moroccan team in the 1994 IAAF World Road Relay
El Guerrouj rose to international prominence in the mid-1990s with near-record times in the 1500 meters and mile. At the age of 20 he finished second in the 1500 meters at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg. In 1996 after setting a new personal best over 1500 meters in 3:29.59 in Stockholm, he was considered one of the favorites for the Olympic gold.
El Guerrouj competed in his first Olympic Games in 1996 at Atlanta. Running the 1500 meters final, he fell with 400 meters to go and finished in 12th place. He had been expected to challenge the world record holder and three-time World champion, Noureddine Morceli.
One month later, at the Grand Prix final in Milan, El Guerrouj became the first runner to defeat Morceli over 1500 meters in four years. In the following years, El Guerrouj became the only middle distance runner to win four consecutive world titles in 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003.
In 1998 in Rome, El Guerrouj broke Morceli's 1500 meter world record (3:27.37) with a time of 3:26.00.
In 1999, also in Rome, El Guerrouj broke the world record in the mile set by Noureddine Morceli in 1993, with a time of 3:43.13 Noah Ngeny of Kenya, who ran second, was also under the previous world record with a time of 3:43.40. This was the first time in over 40 years that two men had bettered the world record in the same race.
Later that season he set a new world record over 2000 meters in Berlin at 4:44.79, bettering the previous mark set by Morceli by more than three seconds. He also ran the second fastest 3000 meter ever in Brussels.
At the Sydney Olympics, El Guerrouj, finished second in the 1500 meters, behind Noah Ngeny, a Kenyan runner who ran as El Guerrouj's pacemaker when El Guerrouj ran his 1500 meter world record in Rome in 1998.
El Guerrouj defended his 1500 meter title in the 2001 and 2003 World Championships and came close to breaking his own 1500 m record in Brussels in 2001 with a time of 3:26.12. He also won 3 consecutive IAAF Golden League prizes in 2001, 2002 and 2003. He was the only middle distance athlete to have a win streak necessary to be entitled to a share of the jackpot of 50 kilograms (1,608 troy ounces) of gold (2000–2002) or USD 1 million (1998–1999, 2003–present). He won it three times in a row.
In 2003, El Guerrouj set a personal best of 12:50.24 in the 5000 meters. Later in the year, at the World Track and Field Championships, he finished a close second to Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge in the 5000 meters, adding a silver to the gold he had previously won in the 1500 meters.
After a relatively poor start to the 2004 season that included slow times and an 8th place finish in a 1500 meter race in Rome, El Guerrouj won the gold medal in both the 1500 meters and 5000 meters at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Only 20 days before the Olympic final, 2000 Olympic bronze medalist Bernard Lagat ran the fastest 1500 meters in 2004 (3:27.40), narrowly defeating El Guerrouj (3:27.64) at the Weltklasse Zürich meet on August 6. However, on August 24, El Guerrouj beat Lagat by 0.12 seconds in the Olympic 1500 meter final, winning the gold medal.
Four days later El Guerrouj won the 5,000 meter final with a time of 13:14.39 preventing Kenenisa Bekele from achieving the 5000 meter/10000 meter distance double, last achieved by Ethiopian Miruts Yifter in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
El Guerrouj became then the first man in 80 years to win both 1500 meter and 5000 meter races in the same Olympics, last achieved by the "Flying Finn" Paavo Nurmi in 1924.
After the Olympics, El Geurrouj never again competed internationally, and announced his retirement on May 22, 2006. Nevertheless, his sporting career is marked by numerous recognitions such as the award for humanitarian effort from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which he received in 1996. He is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. El Guerrouj was named athlete of the year by the IAAF in 2001 and 2002 after remaining unbeaten in more than 20 races, becoming the first man to win the award in consecutive years. He was also named best athlete of the year by the athletics journal Track and Field News in 2002. In 2003, he was elected as a member of the IAAF Athletes Committee.
On September 7, 2004, El Guerrouj was decorated with the "Cordon de Commandeur" by King Mohammed VI of Morocco. In the same year, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Awards.
El Guerrouj is also a member of the International Olympic Committee Athletes' Commission.
[edit] Personal bests
The following table includes El Guerrouj's personal best times as published by the IAAF:
Distance Mark Date Location
800 m 1:47.18 1995-02-06
1000 m 2:16.85 1999-07-12 Nice
1500 m 3:26.00 1998-07-14 Rome
Mile 3:43.13 1999-07-07 Rome
2000 m 4:44.79 1999-09-07 Berlin
3000 m 7:23.09 1999-09-03 Brussels
5000 m 12:50.24 2003-03-12 Ostrava
Titles and major results
(1500 meters unless indicated)
Year (Age) Competition Place Date Place Time Notes
1995 (21) World Championship Indoor Barcelona March 11 (1) 3:44.54
1995 World Championships Gothenburg August 13 (2) 3:35.28 Noureddine Morceli (1)
1996 (22) 1996 Atlanta Olympics Atlanta August 3 (12) 3:40.75 El Guerrouj fell down
1997 (23) Grand Prix Stuttgart February 2 (1) 3:31.18 WR 1500 meters indoor
Grand Prix Gand February 12 (1) 3:48.45 (mile) - WR mile indoor
World Championship Indoor Paris March 8 (1) 3:35.31
1997 World Championships Athens August 6 (1) 3:35.83 Fermín Cacho (2)
1998 (24) Grand Prix Rome July 14 (1) 3:26.00 WR 1500 meters
1999 (25) Grand Prix Rome July 7 (1) 3:43.13 (mile) - WR mile; Noah Ngeny (2)
1999 World Championships Seville August 24 (1) 3:27.65 Noah Ngeny (2)
Grand Prix Final Berlin September 7 (1) 4:44.79 (2000 m) - WR 2000 meters
2000 (26) 2000 Sydney Olympics Sydney September 29 (2) 3:32.32 Noah Ngeny (1)
2001 (27) World Championship Indoor Lisbon March 11 (1) 7:37.74 (3000 m)
2001 World Championships Edmonton August 5 (1) 3:30.68 Bernard Lagat (2)
2003 (29) 2003 World Championships Paris August 27 (1) 3:31.77 Mehdi Baala (2)
August 31 (2) 12:52.83 (5000 m) - Eliud Kipchoge (1)
2004 (30) 2004 Athens Olympics Athens August 24 (1) 3:34.18 Bernard Lagat (2)
August 28 (1) 13:14.39 (5000 m) - Kenenisa Bekele (2)
Hicham El Guerrouj see El Guerrouj
El-Hibri, Fuad
Fuad El-Hibri (b. March 2, 1958, Hildesheim, Germany – d. April 23, 2022, Potomac, Maryland) was a German-American businessman and philanthropist, and founder of Emergent BioSolutions.
Fuad El-Hibri was born in Hildesheim, Germany. He spent his childhood equally in Europe and the Middle East before coming to the United States to get an economics degree from Stanford and an MBA from Yale.
El-Hibri worked most of his career in the telecommunications industry. Between graduate school and working for BioPort and Emergent, he worked abroad, in countries including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and El Salvador.
El-Hibri served as president of Digicel from August 2000 to February 2005. He served as the president of East West Resources Corporation from September 1990 to January 2004.
He was a member of the senior management team of Speywood, LTD. in the United Kingdom and organized and directed the management buyout of Porton Products Ltd. El-Hibri reorganized Porton. He was advisor to the senior management team involved in the oversight of Porton operations; served as a senior associate and resident project manager at Booz Allen Hamilton, and was a manager of Citicorp in New York City (Mergers and Acquisitions), and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Operations and Credit).
Beginning in June 1990, El-Hibri was chairman of East West Resources Corporation, a venture capital and financial consulting firm. He served as the chairman of Digicel Holdings from August 2000 to October 2006. He served as executive chairman of the board of Emergent BioDefense Operations Lansing Inc.
El-Hibri was on the Emergent BioSolutions board of directors. He was both the board chairman and the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company from 2004 to 2012. He was the board chairman and CEO of BioPort Corporation from 1998 to 2004. Emergent acquired BioPort in 2004.
El-Hibri's main role as the chairman of Emergent was to develop corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions.
After the 2001 anthrax attacks, some conspiracy theorists posted Internet websites that tried to imply that El-Hibri was connected to Osama Bin Laden and was connected to the anthrax attacks. USA Today interviewed El-Hibri in 2004 for an article about Muslim CEOs of companies helping to fight terrorism, and wrote, "El-Hibri calls the Web sites annoying and jokes that he's lucky to be in the vaccination business so that he can inoculate himself from the pain of accusers who can't be confronted."
One of the Yale University School of Management donor-funded awards, the El-Hibri Award provides first year School of Management students with internship program funding over the summer, seed capital for new businesses for second-year men and women and special funding for those going into early-stage start-up ventures. A group of 14 Yale alumni - entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors - choose the students who receive the awards, which total $100,000.
El-Hibri served on the boards of the United States Chamber of Commerce, International Biomedical Research Alliance, and National Health Museum. He also served on the advisory boards of the Heifetz International Music Institute and Yale Healthcare Conference.
El-Hibri's mother is a German Catholic, and his father is a Lebanese businessman. As a child, he lived in Germany and Lebanon. He became a United States citizen in 1999. He died on April 23, 2022 at Potomac, Maryland from pancreatic cancer.
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