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Salah Hissou first came to international notice in 1991, when he won the
5,000m at the Moroccan national championships. His best time that year,
13min 37.40sec, was the fourth fastest 5,000m recorded by a junior in
1991. He had two relatively lean years in 1992 and 1993, but 1994 saw
an incredible improvement in his performances, when he lowered his 5,000m
personal best to 13min 04.93sec, and his 10,000m personal best to 27min
21.75sec. In the 10,000m final at the 1995 World Championships in
Gothenburg on 8 August, Hissou led at the bell, but was outsprinted in
the final lap and finished a disappointing fourth. On 25 August, in
Brussels, he clocked 27min 09.30sec for 10,000m, breaking the Moroccan
national record in the process.
In 1996, he broke 13 minutes for 5,000m
on three occasions, and his fastest time of 12min 50.80sec, set at Rome
on 5 June, was the second fastest 5,000m ever run. Despite these
credentials, Hissou elected to only contest the 10,000m at the 1996
Olympic Games in Atlanta on 29 July, where he won the bronze medal (see photo above)
behind Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie and Kenyan Paul Tergat in a time of
27min 24.67sec. However, Salah ran a very different 10,000m race in
Brussels less than four weeks later on 23 August. After following
pacemakers for the first 7,000m, Hissou ran away from the field, winning
easily in a time of 26min 38.08sec, and breaking Gebrselassie's world
record by over 5 seconds.
However, this world record didn't make Hissou
any short priced favourite for the 10,000m at the 1997 World
Championships in Athens, as Gebrselassie regained the world record in
July 1997. At Athens, on August 6, Hissou again finished third behind
Gebrselassie and Tergat, duplicating their finishing order in the
previous yearís Olympic final. (Ron Casey)
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