Soufiane el-Bakkali, born January 7, 1996 in Fez, a specialist in the 3000 m steeplechase, won the gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and then in 2024 in Paris, becoming the first Moroccan to retain his gold medal in 2 editions of the Olympic Games and the 2nd Moroccan to win a 2nd gold medal at the Olympic Games after Hicham el Guerrouj. He was also crowned world champion in 2022 in Eugene and in 2023 in Budapest. He was also vice-world champion in 2017 in London, and bronze medalist in 2019 in Doha.
On August 2, 2021, at the Tokyo Olympics, he won his first Olympic medal with a time of 8:08:90 after dropping Ethiopian Lamecha Girma and Kenyan Benjamin Kigen in the last 200 meters. He became the first non-Kenyan athlete to win this distance since Poland's Bronisław Malinowski in 1980 in Moscow.
On June 9, 2023, during the Paris Meeting, Ethiopian Lamecha Girma beat the 3000m steeplechase world record held since 2004 by Kenyan-born Qatari Saif Saaeed Shaheen (Stephen Cherono) by more than a second and a half, covering the distance in 7:52:11. Soufiane el-Bakkali is on the hunt for this world record to enter the history of the 3000m sprint.
