A virus may be troubling El Guerrouj

Paris: Four-time world champion Hicham El Guerrouj has pulled out of next month’s world championships in Helsinki and says he will wrap up his glittering career in 2006.

The Moroccan, 31 in September, pulled off a sensational 1,500-5,000 m double at last year’s Athens Olympics when he became the first man since Paavo Nurmi in 1924 to win both events at one Games.

El Guerrouj had failed in two previous heartbreaking Olympic bids for the 1,500m, winning silver in Sydney in 2000.

But he has been unable to get back to full-time training since Athens and a virus in may caused further disruption and forced him to pull out of the Nehgelo meeting in the Netherlands and Eugene in the United States.

And the International Association of Athletic Federations confirmed Monday the Moroccan had pulled out of the Helsinki championships.

“And when I returned to Ilfrane it was as if the engine was broken,” he told a sports daily.

“Physically I was fine but I simply didn’t have the heart.”

He said a never-ending series of public appearances after his Athens triumph had taken its toll. “I was always being invited. It was exhausting. I tried to get back into training but it was hard.

“I haven’t had a break in ten years,” El Guerrouj said.

He plans to resume training in August and run again in 2006 before hanging up his spikes. “I’ve got nothing to prove. Everything I do next year will be a bonus,” he said.

He named Portugal’s Olympic bronze medallist Rui Silva as his favourite to succeed him in Helsinki but believed Ukraine's Ivan Heshko and Kenya’s Komen Kipchirchir, who has emerged this year, were in the running for the world title.