Moroccan Runner Breaks El Guerrouj’s 20-Year-Old Indoor 3000m Record

He improves the previous record of 7 minutes 33 seconds and 73 hundredths, held by Hicham El Guerrouj since 2003, and set at the same event.

This race is part of a series of good results for Essayi. The previous week, he had won the 1500 meters of the Metz meeting, with a time of 3 minutes 33 seconds and 55 hundredths, a new record for this competition.

With these times, Essayi positions himself among the best athletes in the world in the 1500 meters this season. He is now second in the ranking of the best Moroccan indoor performances of all time in this distance, behind the national record of Hicham El Guerrouj (3:31.18), set in Stuttgart in 1997.

Essayi’s career also includes underperformances. He had failed to qualify for the 1500 meters final at the Paris Olympics, finishing seventh in his semi-final, while only the top six were qualified.

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