El Guerrouj stamps authority on final day

Hicham El Guerrouj stamped his authority on the final day of the eighth world championships on Sunday with a third consecutive 1,500 metres title.

He then announced he would move up a distance to the 5,000, in an acknowledgment that he would not now win the Olympic title over the distance he has dominated for the past five years.

"I wanted to have the best race of my life because that was my last 1,500," said El Guerrouj, who clocked three minutes 30.68 seconds ahead of Kenyan Bernard Lagat. "It's fantastic. It's unbelievable."

El Guerrouj was beaten only three times over the 1,500 or the mile between 1996 and 2000. Unfortunately two of those defeats came at the Olympics.

In 1996 he fell at the bell in the Atlanta final and eventually finished 12th. Last year he finished behind Noah Ngeny in Sydney and just held off Lagat for the silver.

After Sunday's race, El Guerrouj sank to his knees on the track and traced the words "I love you all. Thanks." on the track.

"After last year's Olympic Games I had a lot of personal problems," El Guerrouj said. "My coach, my family were faithful to me. It is thanks to them that I came back."

Two other great champions graced the final day of the championships.

Olympic champion Maria de Lourdes Mutola of Moazambique regained the world 800 metres title after a desperate lunge for the line ahead of her close Austrian rival Stephanie Graf.

Close Finish
Mutola won in one minute 57.17, three-hundredths of a second ahead of Graf in the closest finish to a world championships women's 800 metres final.

"I did not know what Stephanie had left, I just kept pushing and pushing," she said. "Finally, I saw I was getting closer. She is a very tough competitor."

Czech Jan Zelezny confirmed he is the greatest javelin thrower ever with a third world title to add to his three Olympic gold medals.

Now 35, Zelezny won with a second-round effort of 92.80 metres, a personal best at a world championships.

"I am older and I am throwing better and better," he said. "I don't know when I'll stop."

In the day's opening event, Lidia Simon finally won her first global gold medal when she strode to victory in the women's marathon.

The 27-year-old Romanian owned seven world championship and Olympic medals before Sunday but still no golds after finishing second to Japanese Naoko Takahashi by eight-hundredths of a second in Sydney.

"All the time I was thinking of Sydney," she said. "I thought I must take my revenge after Sydney. I have cried too much from the hard work it took to get here and I cannot cry any more."

South Africa's Olympic silver medallist Hestrie Cloete also went one better on Sunday, winning the women's high jump with an even two metres.

"It was very stressful," Cloete said. "South Africa saved the best for last."

The U.S. men's teams won both relay golds with emotional final appearances by 35-year-old Dennis Mitchell in the 4x100 and 33-year-old Antonio Pettigrew in the 4x400.

But the women's 4x400 team missed out on a world medal for the first time since the inaugural 1983 world championships in Helsinki after Suziann Reid juggled, then dropped, the baton on the final changeover.