Athletics: El Guerrouj among five still running for gold

World champion and world record holder in the 1500 m, Morocco's Hicham El-Guerrouj is among the five athletes still running for gold in the IAAF Golden League and participates Friday in the Berlin meet, which is the last meet in the series.

The five athletes are still in the running for a share of the jackpot of 50 kilograms of gold bars given to men and women who win at least five times during the seven-meet Golden League series.

Apart from Marion Jones, who already has six victories in the 100-meter dash, Romania's Violeta Szekely-Beclea qualified for a share with five wins in the 1,500.

The five who could join the mix are: Andre Bucher of Switzerland in the 800, Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco in the 1,500, Allen Johnson of the United States in the 110-meter hurdles, Steffi Graf of Austria in the women's 800, and Russia's Olga Yegorova in the 5,000.

El Guerrouj has announced an attempt at the 2,000-meter world record that he set at the same stadium two years ago when he clocked 4 minutes, 44.79 seconds.

The Moroccan is in superb shape. After winning the World Championship title in the 1,500, El Guerrouj just missed breaking his world record in the distance at the Van Damme Memorial in Brussels last Friday, the previous Golden League meet.

He ran the 1,500 in 3:26.12, missing his world mark just by 12 seconds, but still the second-fastest time in history.

This magnificent run has taken the Moroccan middle-distance star to the head of the IAAF Overall World Rankings, published Tuesday.