Paris (EFE).- Yassine Ouhdadi gave a display of strength and power on the track to defend with enormous authority at the Stade de France the gold medal in the 5,000 meters, T13 class for the visually impaired, won in Tokyo 2020 three years ago.
The 30-year-old Spanish athlete of Moroccan origin had a sensational race in which he knew how to ration his efforts so that, on the last lap, in the slipstream of Australian Jaryd Clifford, who was with his guide, he could pass him, start to gain metres and reach the finish line alone with a big difference over his rivals.
Ouhdadi was the strongest on the purple track of a Stade de France that had some 70,000 spectators in its stands. The Spaniard stopped the clock at 15:50.64, almost two seconds less than the Russian Aleksandr Kostin, who clocked 15:52.36 and climbed onto the podium as a neutral. Third was Clyfford, who collapsed on the last lap and clocked 15:55.05.
Yassine Ouhdadi arrived in Spain from Morocco when he was just six years old. He was born with inoperable cataracts in both eyes and, since 2014, due to the insistence of a friend, athletics has provided him with a great motivation to make an effort and change his life. He suffers from total blindness in his left eye and partial blindness in his right eye, with only 20% vision.
Before finding refuge in athletics, he dreamed of being a footballer on the streets of Ouarzazate, until at the age of six he left with his parents and sister for the town of Tortosa in Tarragona in search of a better life.
Yassine Ouhdadi’s career
Her main sporting achievement came in her first participation in the Paralympic Games, in Tokyo 2020, where she won the gold medal in the 5,000-meter event and also earned a diploma in the 1,500-meter event.
At her first World Championships, in Dubai 2019, she debuted with a silver medal in the 5,000 metres, including a European record (14:42.12), and later, in Paris 2023, she won gold in the 5,000 metres and silver in the 1,500 metres.
At the continental level, in 2021 she closed her participation in the European Championships in Poland by reaching the podium twice. Once to collect silver in the 5,000 metres and another time bronze in the 1,500 metres.
