I was only 15 when Moroccan athlete Nawal Al-Moutawakel received the gold medal for the 400-metre hurdle race at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was a quiet afternoon, that of 8 August, and I was glued to the TV screen as the Moroccan anthem resounded, my eyes fixed on the first African, Arab or Muslim woman to win an Olympic gold medal weeping tears of joy on the podium. Seven years later, in 2000, I was speaking at the World International Olympic Committee (IOC) Conference on Women and Sports when I spotted Al-Moutawakel in the first row. Fortunately my address generated considerable applause from the 600-strong auditorium, but when Al-Moutawakel came up to personally congratulate me -- an evidently successful Arab woman in the same field as she -- that felt like an even greater reward. Since then I've followed her presence on the international sports scene as closely as I would a friend's, and my admiration for her has grown more and more. By Interview by Inas Mazhar Appointed head of the IOC Evaluation Committee responsible for assessing five cities that have made a bid to host the 2012 Olympics, last month at the World Athletics Championship in Helsinki, I discovered that the 42-year-old athlete is also a member of the board of the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). I thought I'd use the opportunity to interview her, and the first thing I found out was that her televised tears, that day in 1984, were as much of grief as of joy. Her father had passed away only months before the Games, she told me: "He was my greatest fan, he pushed me in the conviction that I would be a real champion one day. He would have been very happy to see me there..." For the 22-year-old, after all, this was the race of a lifetime -- "my only chance, to be or not to be" -- for while she stood at the starting line, she says, the ten hurdles metamorphosed into the very embodiment of all that stood in her way as an African, Arab and Muslim sportswomen. Born on 15 April 1962 in Casablanca, Al-Moutawakel had trained under difficult circumstances -- at a time when the sight of a young woman running in shorts was unfamiliar enough to solicit too much (male) attention, even within the stadium grounds; at times the insults were such they left her crying. Without the unwavering support of her father and French coach, she remembers, she would never have learned to shut them out. To the majority of the onlookers in California, the tiny, dark Moor looked like a stranger, yet already she was known among athletes and sports administrators as an outstanding African and Mediterranean Games' participant (she was African champion in 1982 and 1984 and Mediterranean champion in 1983 and 1987). Her American and Swedish competitors may have drawn more media attention, but specialists were watching her -- the newcomer who just might confound every expectation. "I was determined to win," she says. "It was my long-awaited chance. I had missed the 1980 Olympics in Moscow because of a political boycott. I was angry but there was nothing I could do. I had to wait another four years. And I felt I had to live up to the support of so many of my compatriots: the whole delegation, and the late King Hassan II," who sent a message to Los Angeles to the effect that he was confident that a Moroccan would win an Olympic medal. "All believed in me. I had no choice but to make it to the podium." Both the aforementioned competitors, as well as the Romanian, were above 1.80 metres tall, while Al-Moutawakel measured no more than 1.59. With a mere 65cm between her head and tail leg, as a consequence, she was at a disadvantage before the ten 76cm tall hurdles she had to cross. And her performance duly extracted a stunned response. She silenced the crowds. For the infinitesimal duration of the race, she went through such insurmountable tension she felt physically sick; it was the hopes of millions of Moroccans that pushed her forward. In the same way as she had done in the Casablanca stadium, she blocked out the rest of the world. She forgot there were others running with her. But there having occurred two false starts in the race, as she crossed the eighth hurdle she was gripped by a sudden fear -- was this another false start and was she the only one still running? It didn't occur to her that she might be ahead of the others: "I looked back to make sure. I was almost 20 metres ahead, and I just had to keep going until the finishing line." Had she not had that moment of doubt, she would have set a world record. As it was she set an African one, at 54'61 (the silver and bronze medal winners, the American and the Romanian, respectively, arrived 00'59 and 00'80 seconds later). Later that day, while celebrating, she received a congratulatory call from the monarch in person. Nor was this all: she became a living legend, virtually overnight; the magnitude of the celebrations awaiting her return was such that the day was declared a national holiday. Received by the then Crown Prince (now King) Mohamed VI and his sister Princess Mariam, she was paraded through the streets -- to phenomenal festivity. For a long time to come, every female newborn was named Nawal. As soon as her sports career ended, as early as 1987, she found high-profile employment. As well as IAAF and eventually IOC membership, she served as minister of youth and sports under the late King Hassan II: "I retired at the age of 24 -- to hand down the Olympic torch to a younger generation. But I thought I'd stay in the field -- if only to support female practitioners in my country and region. And I encouraged girls to play all kinds of sports. Partly because in 1984 I was the only woman in a delegation of 100. When I started out in the early 1980s, I didn't see many women around me. Neither coaches nor doctors nor journalists, for that matter. And I wanted to help change that. "Sports changed my own life, and I thought the same could happen to other women. This seemed all the more meaningful in the light of the curiosity of sportspeople all over the world; they wanted to know how a Moroccan -- an Arab, African, Muslim -- sportswoman had fared on her way to the Olympic podium. It was easy to get their attention as a speaker. And I felt I had a social role to play, back home. I feel very strongly about returning to where you started, your roots, and I think awareness of the importance of the local club, the national and the regional arenas -- all of which are steps on the way to the international scene -- is already better recognised. It is thanks to sports that I have whatever I have today. When I started I used to run barefoot, I didn't have proper shoes. And every day, to this day, I make a point of reliving the first time I ran competitively; many others are going through the same things now and they need all the contact they can get. We all need to be listened to, to be touched by someone. Outreach is among my top priorities, along with teaching the relevant skills. "Through the positions I've assumed, I've been trying to promote women's sports -- to show how it changes your life -- whatever the specific discipline, from judo to volleyball. It doesn't take much -- a word, a moment of contact, a piece of sound advice. It was in the conviction that sports can change your life that, together with such people as Sebastian Coe, Sergei Bubka, Edwin Moses, Michael Jordan, Nadia Commanceci, Boris Becker and Michael Johnson, I participated in establishing a foundation to counter negative forces like poverty and drugs -- through the power of sports. Sports not only change but save lives and this is basically my work, my voluntary work. I am happy to do it for free because I think sports gave me so much no matter how much I give in return I feel it will never be enough." For six years now, among other things, Al-Moutawakel has organised a race for women -- a 10-km distance race that draws women from all over the world onto the streets of Casablanca; more than 20,000 have participated; and they come in tracksuits, shorts or veils. "Having a race for women," she emphasises, "means there are women in sports." Of the aforementioned positions, that of head of the IOC Evaluation Committee is particularly remarkable: "I was very proud. It was a unique opportunity for a woman. [IOC chairman] Jacques Rogges made that decision for the first time in the history of the Olympics. And it was no easy task to direct a committee that included experts and officials, representatives of sports federations and public figures. All 12 members were very motivated, however. First we read the reports (a 600-page file, for each city) then spent five days in each city -- New York, Madrid, Paris, London and Moscow -- before submitting our recommendations to the executive board. The real hard work started at the beginning of the year, with the reading, though the reports made life easier for being comprehensive. Then again, we had five excellent candidates to choose among. It boiled down to the most efficient, the smoothest organisation, something we had to judge without the benefit of scores. But we did a good job -- we got a commendation for it, and we were glad. And London deserved to win. Bid file leader Sebastian, an IOC and IAAF colleague, played a key role in the presentation. It was moving how much the English believed in their bid until the very end. Everyone at the IOC was touched." Almost by way of an afterthought, Al-Moutawakel declared that, however immersed she is in them, she will not force sports on her children: "Of course I'd like it if they became career sportspeople like myself, but I'm not going to put pressure on them. I was 15 when I started, so my 13-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son have a chance yet. In the end they'll find their own way in life, though they come along with me to see the Olympics and other championships. And frankly I think they are bound to be hooked on something..."
