Soufiane El Bakkali ( ar, سفيان البقالي, born 7 January 1996) is a Moroccan male runner specializing in the

3000 metres steeplechase The 3000 metres steeplechase or 3000-meter steeplechase (usually abbreviated as ) is the most common distance for the steeplechase in track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, a ...

. He is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic champion, having previously finished fourth at the

2016 Rio Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

. At the World Athletics Championships, El Bakkali won the gold medal in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, silver in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

and bronze in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. He also placed third at the

2019 African Games The 12th African Games was held from 19 to 31 August 2019 in Rabat, Morocco. This was the first time that the African Games were hosted by Morocco following the country's readmission to the African Union in January 2017. Bidding process The 12th ...

and second at the 2018 African Championships. El Bakkali was in his specialist event the

2022 Diamond League The 2022 Diamond League was the thirteenth season of the Diamond League, an annual series of outdoor track and field meetings, organised by World Athletics. The competition was a revision to the top level sport of athletics, athletics series sinc ...

champion.

Career

At age 18, Soufiane El Bakkali placed fourth in the

3000 m steeplechase The 3000 metres steeplechase or 3000-meter steeplechase (usually abbreviated as ) is the most common distance for the steeplechase in track and field. It is an obstacle race over the distance of the 3000 metres, which derives its name from the h ...

at the

2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics The 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics was an international athletics competition for athletes qualifying as juniors (born 1995 or later) which was held at the Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, USA, on 22–27 July 2014. A total of 44 a ...

, and then made his senior debut at the

2014 African Championships in Athletics The 2014 African Championships in Athletics was held in Marrakech, Morocco from 10 to 14 August 2014. The competition was the 19th edition of Africa senior championships. The competition served as preparation to African athletes for the next conti ...

, taking tenth in the event. He also competed in

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open coun ...

and was 18th as a junior at the

2015 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2015 IAAF World Cross Country Championships () was the 41st edition of the global championships in cross country running, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It was held in Guiyang, China on 28 March. It was the ...

. He gained selection for

Morocco at the 2016 Summer Olympics Morocco competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. This was the nation's fourteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics. Moroccan Olympic Committee (french: Comité Olympique Marocain) fielded a squad ...

after a personal best of 8:14.41 minutes to take fourth in his specialist event at the

Herculis The Herculis is an annual track and field meet at Stade Louis II in Fontvieille, Monaco. Previously one of the five IAAF Super Grand Prix events, it is now part of the Diamond League. World records Over the course of its history, five world reco ...

meeting. At the

Rio Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro d ...

, El Bakkali improved his personal best further to 8:14.35 minutes and finished fourth.Soufiane El Bakkali
. Rio2016. Retrieved on 19 August 2016. He won the silver medal at the 2017 World Championships held in London in a time of 8:14.49 behind only

Conseslus Kipruto Conseslus Kipruto (born 8 December 1994) is a Kenyan middle-distance runner who specializes in the 3000 metres steeplechase. He was the 2016 Rio Olympic champion in the event. At the World Athletics Championships, Kipruto won gold medals in 20 ...

who ran 8:14.12. Two years later, at the World Championships in

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the coun ...

, Qatar El Bakkali earned a bronze with a season's best of 8:03.76 behind Kipruto (8:01.35) and Lamecha Girma (8:01.36). On 3 September 2020, he won the 1500 metres race at the 14th International Marseille Athletics Meeting in France. El Bakkali qualified to represent Morocco at the

2020 Tokyo Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

where he won the gold medal in his signature event with a time of 8:08.90, ahead of Girma in 8:10.38 and Benjamin Kigen (8:11.45). He thus became the first non-Kenyan-born athlete to win the title since Poland’s Bronislaw Malinowski did so at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and the first non-Kenyan gold medallist at the Olympics or World Championships since 1987. On 18 September 2021, El Bakkali won his specialty event at the Kip Keino Classic meeting in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

, Kenya, finishing with a 8:21.20 clocking. On 18 July 2022 at the World Athletics Championships held in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, Eu ...

, El Bakkali became the world champion, winning the gold medal in the 3000 m steeplechase with a time of 8:25.13 ahead of Lamecha Girma (8:26.01) and Conseslus Kipruto (8:27.92). In September at the

Diamond League The Diamond League is an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions comprising fourteen of the best invitational athletics meetings. The series sits in the top tier of the World Athletics (formerly known as the IAAF) one-day mee ...

final in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

, he claimed his first Diamond Trophy. Just three days later, he capped his fine season with an African best in the 2000 m steeplechase, running 5:14.06 at the

Hanžeković Memorial Hanžeković Memorial ( hr, Hanžekovićev memorijal) is an athletics event at the Sportski Park Mladost athletic stadium in Zagreb, Croatia as part of the IAAF World Challenge Meetings. It was first organized in 1951. ''Hanžek'' (which is the ...

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

to move to third on the world all-time list for the event. El Bakkali was undefeated and ran the fastest time in the world that season, clocking 7:58.28 at

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populati ...

Diamond League. In November, he was shortlisted for the men's World Athletics' World Athlete of the Year award.

Achievements

International competitions

Circuit wins and titles

champion 3000 m steeplechase: Diamond blue

:: 3000 metres steeplechase wins, other events specified in parenthesis :*

: Stockholm Bauhaus-galan, Rabat Meeting () :*

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

Monaco Herculis The Herculis is an annual track and field meet at Stade Louis II in Fontvieille, Monaco. Previously one of the five IAAF Super Grand Prix events, it is now part of the Diamond League. World records Over the course of its history, five world reco ...

( PB) :*

Doha Diamond League The Doha Diamond League is an annual one-day track and field meeting held at the Suheim bin Hamad Stadium in Doha, Qatar. It is part of the Diamond League – the top level international circuit for the sport. It is typically held in May as the fi ...

(WL),

(WL), Meeting de Paris :*

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

: Monaco (WL) :*

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

: Rome Golden Gala in Florence :*

: Doha (WL), Rabat (WL ), Lausanne Athletissima,

Zürich Weltklasse , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich () ...

* World Continental Tour :: 3000 metres steeplechase wins, other events specified in parenthesis :* 2022: Zagreb Hanžeković Memorial (2000 m st.)

Personal bests

1500 metres The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run (typically pronounced 'fifteen-hundred metres') is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athletic ...

– 3:31.95 (

2021) **

2000 metres The 2000 metres or 2000-metre run is a track running event where five laps are completed around an outdoor 400 m track, or ten laps around a 200 m indoor track - the distance is 11.68 meters short of 1¼ miles. The global governing body World Ath ...

indoor – 5:00.55 ( Liévin 2019) *

3000 metres The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000m shoul ...

– 7:37.18 (

Chorzów Chorzów ( ; ; german: link=no, Königshütte ; szl, Chorzōw) is a city in the Silesia region of southern Poland, near Katowice. Chorzów is one of the central cities of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population ...

2021) ** 3000 metres indoor – 7:41.88 ( Liévin 2018) *

5000 metres The 5000 metres or 5000-metre run is a common long-distance running event in track and field, approximately equivalent to or . It is one of the track events in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, run over laps of a stan ...

– 13:47.76 (

2014) ** 5000 metres indoor – 13:10.60 (

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

2017) *

2000 metres steeplechase The 2000 meter steeplechase is a rarely run senior athletics and a standard youth athletics event for the steeplechase in track and field. The event is part of the athletics programme for boys and girls at the IAAF World Youth Championships in At ...

– 5:14.06 (

2022) African best *

– 7:58.15 (

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

2018)

Awards

* Confederation of African Athletics Best Male Athlete of the Year: 2022

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bakkali, Soufiane Living people 1996 births Moroccan male steeplechase runners Moroccan male middle-distance runners Olympic athletes of Morocco Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics World Athletics Championships medalists World Athletics Championships athletes for Morocco Mediterranean Games gold medalists for Morocco Mediterranean Games medalists in athletics Athletes (track and field) at the 2018 Mediterranean Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2019 African Games African Games bronze medalists for Morocco People from Fez, Morocco Mediterranean Games gold medalists in athletics African Games medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic gold medalists for Morocco Olympic gold medalists in athletics (track and field) Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics