Google translate of the "Johan Wallerstein" blog post. I didn't bother to read all of it.
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I have never eaten so good dates as those served at the hotel Finn in Lund on 2 June. And then you will know that I've had more dates in a what a Swedish family is getting for a lifetime. In the Lebanese grocery store at Kattesund I used to, when the urge was at its highest and training that most, gun down three 850-gram boxes Iranian dates to 50 million (unit price SEK 18 then, now they are up to 24).
The dates were wonderful to me along with Jama Aden training group in front of big-screen TV in the hotel lobby. They had arrived in Lund the week before and now we were excited to watch their training mates in the Diamond League race in Eugene. Things went well for the group, Abubaker Kaki won after some difficulty and marked lactic 800 meters, and the fledgling star from Djibouti, Ayanleh Soul Eiman, finished third in the mile with a time 3.50,21. The dates were from Algeria, and it was Taoufik Makloufi who had flown them to Lund. I ate guaranteed most of the party. There were great dates, which remained on the twigs and the consistency was not too soft and not too hard but just gave a moderate resistance. The sweetness was perfect and they stick easily so I had to lick your fingers between each Dadel. I will never forget the taste. Nor will I forget Taoufiks finals in the Olympics or for that matter his 800-meter trials. For me it's certainly strange, bordering on surreal that the young always smiling Algerian whom I assisted, and jogging in the summer, like that created headlines in the year's biggest sporting event. Next to Mo Farah and David Rudisha, he is the OS most omskrivne middle and long distance runners. And wonder if he even cuts out them attention? The story of the runner who just a few hours before his Olympic gold medal in the 1500 meters was disqualified from all further tävliande for breach of bona fide rule is second to none.
Taoufik ran 150 meters of the 800-meter attempt, then he started to jog to finally get off and then to the audience's surprise, and as always with a smile, applaud his Egyptian training partner Mohamed Hamada as he entered the home stretch. From a media strategic terms, it was not optimally managed. Taoufik had in front of TV cameras and sports tycoons violated the "bona fide" rule which says that the athlete should always do their best. He had by his actions reviled the Olympic rings. IOC and IAAF bosses are not the bigwigs at any time. Pompous, they alleged that Taoufik be cleaned.
Of course it was unfair to the runners in the other heats he did not complete the race. Taoufik were seeded as one of the best and when he did not carry out his heat race was the easiest thing to get past on the way to the semifinals. This was an injustice that was directed against the 800-meter runners in all heats except his.
Of course it was a series of mistakes leading up to the event. At first he did not avanmäldes the time of the Algerian League. This is the first and most important mistake. Number two was the organizer of that forced him to start when he promptly asked to avoid. You can never force anyone to compete that do not want. It is like forcing an asexual person to review a dirty magazine. The third mistake, all good things are three, stood Taoufik himself for when he is too obvious for the TV cameras stopped running. He had been "trying" a little better, making 1.53 in all cases.
I still think it was the right to Taoufik got a place in the finals. Anything else would have been a scandal. The injustice against the 800-line-up remains, but it weighs lightly against injustice to take away the gold favorite, a potential Olympic gold. Before the Olympics, I said also that Taoufik will not compete in the 800 meters as he is African champion as he reaches the finals of 1500 and these two races can not be combined. I was convinced his final place. After the experiment, I wrote to Jama to Taoufik probably get a medal. After the semis, I saw him as the favorite to win and I will honestly say that before, and especially well into the final race, as it developed, I was fairly certain that Taoufik would take it home. He attributes to his coach much of the victory.
"I changed coaches. For seven months I have not seen my family since I have trained in Europe and Africa. My family has only seen me on TV. I have worked hard. You win nothing easy. You need years of training and I started training when I was 15 years. And you need a good coach, I have changed coaches several times. "
It takes a lot for him to change coaches again.
TV commentator and 3.29-runner Steve Cram indicates gaps in knowledge when he said in British television suggests that Taoufik comes from nowhere. The impression of Simon Turnbull article in the Independent is the same. I myself have felt compelled to respond to allegations in the social forums on Facebook and Twitter from the more or less good friends. No names mentioned but you who wrote something unseemly know yourself about it. Soon, I will probably write a post about basic netiquette, addressed to all who want to read, but primarily to Swedish athletes and athletic leaders.
Return to Taoufik. He did not come from nowhere. Firstly, he is born of mother earth and are not bred from a vacuum. More precisely, he will from Souk Ahras 1988 in northern Algeria near the border with Tunisia. His personal best development from 2009 to 2012 of 1500 meters is 3.34, 3.32, 3.34 and so in Monaco in the he 3.30,80. A steady improvement over the years. But that is not his personal best which most impressed me, but it is his enormously powerful concluding part of the races. This was shown in all his Olympic races (except the 800-run). For me it was no surprise that he won. Taoufiks worst race in the summer came in Sollentuna GP where he just was 2nd with time 3.35,07, 6 tenths behind world runner Yassine Bensghir. Mind you, this is his worst race summer 2012. Taoufik else has lined up triumphantly.
When I met him first at Lund IP he came from a race in Rabat where he in time 3:34, finished second in a höginternationellt race for the bronze medalist in London, Abdelaati Iguider. Watch the video link here and you see that he is ten at the time the ring. Feels finish back from London ...?
In Bisletts B-final, he had no place in the main contest mile race, he won by three seconds and the time 3:33. Nacerddine Hallil every 2nd and Niclas Sandell was a further two seconds behind. You men who read this and tried to run 1500 meters, imagine yourself that you roll a Niclas Sandell, who is in his best form, with five seconds. It requires nothing more than a talented individual to succeed in this feat. I told Jama after Oslo, without having seen more than the result that the guy can do 3.30.
Taoufik 800-meter runner presented themselves at the Stockholm stadium where he is by far won Olympic commemorative race with a time 1.44. He could just see past the SVT, but as usual, the Swedish Television not eyes with him and he ended up in the shadows behind the Swedish 800-meter stars that were in the same competition.
An even more impressive 800-bet was Taoufik for the African Championships in Benin in mid-summer. Like a Dave Wottle (Olympic final 1972), he puts himself last, to then pick competitors one by one. The last person to see his back is Kenyan Anthony Chemut. Taoufiks time is 1.43,88 and he has this set up in the elite even in their second-best distance. Here a video clip on Taoufiks fantastic performance in Benin. With the victory in Benin can be said that Taoufik repeated the triumph of the All-African Championship 2011, a different competition, certainly, but of about the same international caliber. Then it was 800-specialists and world runners Boaz Lalang and Job Kinyor who were defeated.
I did the first time I saw Taoufik run live that he was something special. On a few occasions during the summer, I got the assignment to be bike cruise control to the group. It's a fun job and not as easy as you think, you should keep a steady pace, neither too high nor too low. Next season I have to get a rear view mirror. The class was 2 x (1000 - 500 - 300-200). 1000-ingarna went fast, 2.25 and 2:20 for the fastest runner in both cases was Hamza. But it was Taoufiks 500 entries that impressed me the most. I started 25 meters behind the men's start line and so they began to run when I passed. Both times opened Taoufik at a furious pace, just a few minutes after he crossed the finish line on the 1000-meter races. This is never, I thought at the beginning of each 500-ing, but it did. He ran them in 68 seconds. 300-no one was even faster, I do not remember what that first went on but it was completed in 38 seconds. The weather during the session? At first downpour that turned to drizzle and it was not wind.
Five Olympians on line at Lund IP. The picture does not show the passport as described above. From left Balla and Hamada, two semifinal 800, Dirouch semi 1500, Gala Final 5000 and Makhloufi victory 1500th The cyclist looks tense ut.Cykeln stolen from Lund C on the night of 1500 finals. In the background, happy athletes from Friskis & Svettis.
Taken together the whole picture, all the races before the Olympics, and his 800-meter capacity, it is not a sensation that Taoufik Makloufi win the Olympics. He has over 2012 continually shown that he is a championship runner. An Olympic final is won typical of times around 3:33 to 3:36. It is just that kind of speed that Taoufik demonstrated an unusual strength. During the summer, he has not been worse than 2nd in the race that kept the momentum. So why should not he be able to win the Olympics if he sharpens to form a step further? 1500 meters was an open question before the Olympics. Not like 800 meters or men's 10000 meters that had been given more favorites.
Jama Aden commented Taoufiks victory in the following way:
"He has been at it for a while but he got his breakthrough this year because of that he changed his coach and training group. He has been injury-free. That he had to train with Kaki has meant a lot to him. His main tasks are the strength, and he has the speed which he proved in the African Cup. Regarding "nonsense comments" we do not care. We know how many hours he trains and we create great workout together. Those who say that he came from nowhere is uninserted. "
Jamaica also had two other very talented 1500-meterslöpare in the group. Ayanleh and Hamza, which this year ran at 3:30 and 3:33. Hamza was eliminated in the semifinals, he needs a little more routine says Jama. Ayanlehs injury before the Olympics was a big disappointment for the trainer. It was otherwise him as Jamaica did most of the season.
The coach Jama Aden
If Gärderud shown little more interest in the sport and for its role as an expert commentator, he should note Makloufis 800 meters in the African Cup and all his fine 1500-meter races during the summer. In that case, his confident running the OS does not come as a surprise. Experts' lack of skills, I have written about before, when was the psychiatric investigations around Anders Behring Breivik. Furthermore, I draw always wary when I hear the word expert. Löpexpert, vinexpert, expert investigators and expert commentator. The word is bland and in the case of "expert" Gärderud I think it is misleading. Please do not come with a fribergare and say I want to Gärderuds job. I am far from intended and makes me nervous just me pronounce the word foul or hedge passage. I'd rather write about athletics than talk about it. Gärderud should be substituted for the simple reason that the Swedish athletics interested public should have the right facts supplied to them when they nibbling baby carrots in front of athletic broadcasts.
And for a moment, I write in English when I am talking to another expert commentator.
This message is to you Steve Cram, please get a translator for this text about Taoufik Makhloufi. I can do the translation. I will not do it without a salary.
The meeting with Taoufik, his coach Jama Aden and the other guys in his training group is a very nice memory of summer 2012. Of course, the memories of Taoufik in the glow of the gold medal extra strong. Remember, he came top of the podium at the Olympics on löpningens blue ribbon. That I'm in the front row had the opportunity to follow an Olympic master's journey toward the greatest triumph of an athlete can achieve, with some reservation for the world to board one Olympic gold, is nothing but a memory for life. I do not think I will get to experience something similar.
One of the cars that runners use while in Lund for his trips out to Skrylleskogen was an older, well-worn little Peugeot 106 from 1996. It was Staffan who generously allowed them to use his second car. I used to joke with the guys that it was a Ferrari. Taoufik laughed and replied that the car was good. Such is he Taoufik, extravagance does not seem to lie for him, yet he is always impeccably dressed, so well in practice as everyday use. What matters is the results on the track and fought hard to achieve the goal. Just as hard as an Olympic champion must fight. Seven months of 2012, he has been away from his family. We are not talking about a month-long vacation camp that many Swedish elite runners treat themselves once a year, but about half a year long intensive training camp. Feel in the Swedish elite runners. Feel also the glacially slow distance running as described here and that I have on several occasions had the honor to perform with Taoufik and his training buddies in Skrylleskogen. I do not write how slow it was in minutes per kilometer, Swedish runner is far too time-fixed, but I can instead tell you that it was so slow that even the birds stopped in its early summer chirping and almost mockingly acknowledged (or called the tvittra?) "It looks like pensionärsjogg". Next time I come to Skrylleskogen I promise with my softest tenor voice, chirp back to chaffinches and great tits "chirping best twittering last."