“She saw my qualities”: Mahiedine Mekhissi reveals the person who plunged her into athletics


Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin
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10:59 p.m., January 19, 2023

The former 3000 meter steeplechase champion, Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad fell very early in athletics. Exclusively on the program “Europe 1 Sport”, the triple Olympic medalist spoke intimately about his childhood and revealed what prompted him to embark on this discipline.

Triple Olympic medalist in the 3000m steeplechase, double medalist at the Worlds and five times European champion, Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad retired from sport at the age of 37 at the start of 2023. A difficult decision for those who have nothing predestined to become a world famous runner. At the microphone of the Europe 1 Sport program (every evening from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), the former champion told what made him switch to this sport during his childhood.

Coming from a large and not well-to-do family, Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad outclasses his comrades from primary school. Qualities that his CE1 mistress very quickly notices, who then decides to take him to a club. “I started in primary school. It was my school teacher who introduced me to athletics. She saw that I had exceptional qualities,” explained the founder.

“A Way Out”

The man who has built one of the most beautiful track records in the history of athletics in France has admitted that he did not necessarily want to practice this discipline when he was little. “I did not necessarily choose this sport, it fell like that. It was more the athlete who chose me”, he said with hindsight in Europe 1 Sport.

But little by little, a link is established between Mahiedine Mekhissi and athletics that will no longer separate them. “When I was young, I didn’t say to myself: ‘I’m going to be an Olympic world champion’. For me, it was a way out to get out of my neighborhood. It was a door that opened to succeed in life and I I grabbed it. And then I fell into it. I liked running, I liked athletics, “revealed the former European champion with nostalgia.



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