Khalid Yusuf Abdurahman Khannouchi is an Moroccan American marathoner. He was born in Meknes, Morocco. He is the former world record holder for the marathon and held the former road world best for the 20 km distance. He is one of only five people to break the marathon world record more than once, and one of only four to break their own marathon world record.
Khalid fell out with the Moroccan athletics federation over training expenses and moved to Brooklyn, New York City in 1992 with three of his friends. He married American Sandra Inoa in 1996 who now coaches him and acts as his agent. They have set up home in Ossining, New York. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States on May 2, 2000.
Khannouchi returned to marathon competition in 2006 with a fourth-place finish in the Flora London Marathon. His time of 2:07:04 marked the fourth time as an American that he has bettered the 2:08.00 barrier, and he is the only American ever to achieve that feat. It was his fastest marathon time since winning the 2002 London Marathon in a then world record time of 2:05:38. As a promising young runner during the early 1990s, Khalid Khannouchi of Morocco asked the track federation of his home country for assistance with training expenses. When the federation refused assistance, Khannouchi traveled to the United States in 1992, found a job in Brooklyn washing dishes, took up residence with three friends in an apartment and then began serious training. Khannouchi married American Sandra Inoa (a runner he met at a 5k race in Hartford, Conn.) in September 1996 and applied for his green card two months later.
He was sworn in as a U.S. citizen on May 2, 2000. Khannouchi ran very well in smaller road races in the U.S. before running the fastest debut marathon in history to win the 1997 Chicago Marathon. Two years later, Khannouchi ran the fastest time ever in the marathon at Chicago on October 24, 1999. He bettered that time by four seconds when he won the 2002 London Marathon on April 14 (2:05:38). That record was broken by Paul Tergat at the 2003 Berlin Marathon (2:04:55)… Khannouchi, who was contracted to run the 2000 London Marathon on April 16, finished third in 2:08:36. Due to hamstring injuries from that competition, he was unable to compete in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials three weeks later in Pittsburgh. … He experienced back spasms at the 2001 Utica Boilermaker, dropping out of the road race and missing 8 days of training leading up to the World Outdoor Championships in Edmonton, which was to be his first international competition as a U.S. citizen.
In Edmonton, Khannouchi dropped out midway through the race due to blisters, struggling with the heat and the pushing and shoving in the pack. The only marathoner ever to break the 2:06 barrier on three occasions, Khannouchi was presented with USATF’s Pacesetter Award at the 2002 USATF Annual Meeting. The award is presented on special occasions to individuals who embody the highest ideals of the organization.
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