Hassiba Boulmerka

Hassiba Boulmerka
nation	Algeria
birthday	July 10, 1968
place of birth	Constantine
size	158 cm
Weight	49 kg
Career
discipline	Middle distance run
Best performance	1: 58.72 min ( 800 m ) 3: 55.30 min ( 1500 m )
society	CS Constantine
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 0 × World championships 2 × 0 × 1 × African Championships 4 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Barcelona 1992 1500 m  World championships gold Tokyo 1991 1500 m bronze Stuttgart 1993 1500 m gold Gothenburg 1995 1500 m  African Championships gold Annaba 1988 800 m gold Annaba 1988 1500 m gold Lagos 1989 800 m gold Lagos 1989 1500 m

Hassiba Boulmerka ( Arabic حسيبة بولمرقة, DMG Ḥasība Bū-l-Marqa ; * July 10, 1968 in Constantine ) is a former Algerian middle-distance runner . She achieved the first ever Olympic victory for Algeria.

biography

Boulmerka started with athletics as a young girl and specialized in the middle distances of 800 and 1500 meters . She was successful in national and regional races, but had no significant competitors. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul , she was eliminated in both middle distance races in the preliminary stages.

Boulmerka's performance gradually got better and in 1991 she made her international breakthrough. At the World Championships in Tokyo , she won the 1500-meter race, making it the first African world champion in athletics. Their successes didn't just generate positive responses. In her home country, she was regularly threatened by Islamic fundamentalists because she was allegedly dressed too freely at the competitions. Boulmerka was forced to move to Europe and train there. Despite all these problems, she won the 1,500 meter race at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics , becoming the very first Algerian Olympic champion.

The next two seasons were not so successful, but she won a bronze medal at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart . Before the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg , she had not won a single race in the current season. However, this did not prevent her from her triumph over 1500 meters. It was her only win that season and also her last major success.

She competed in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 , but sprained her ankle during the competition . After the 1997 season, in which she had renounced to defend her world title, she resigned from top-class sport. Boulmerka was later elected to the IOC's Athletes' Commission.

Web links

• Hassiba Boulmerka in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Hassiba Boulmerka in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Hassiba Boulmerka. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).