Mo Katir wins bronze in the 1500m and brings Spain back to the glory of the past
An Australian, Jake Wightman, and a Norwegian, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, have been the first classified in the 1500m final at the World Athletics Championships held in Eugene (Oregon, USA).
This podium is a turning point in this sport and even more so when the Spanish Mohamed Katir El Haouzi appears on the third step of the podium to give back to this sport the place it deserves in the history of Spanish sport.
With Katir's bronze medal, Spain consolidates its position as the European country with the most medals in this discipline. Mo Katir's medal follows José Luis González's silver in 1987, Fermín Cacho's silver in 1993 and 1997 and Reyes Estévez's bronze in 1997 and 1999.
Katir was born in Alcazarquivir (Morocco) in 1988 and at the age of five he emigrated to Spain with his father, who had been in the country for more than 30 years and came to work in a boat. From Huesca he moved to Mula (Murcia) and his football career soon came to an end to devote himself to athletics. With a height of 1.82m and a slim build, he had every chance of progressing in the sport.
He did not obtain Spanish nationality until 2019, although he had applied for it in 2015. In the meantime, he made merits by proclaiming himself Spanish junior cross country champion and broke other regional records to win the eyes of the RFEA.
"I am Spanish and from Mule" Katir said in the press in 2019, that year he would end up getting the nationality, but in March the media was already looking at him because his passport did not arrive. He tried to get it by naturalisation, but that is almost impossible unless you stand out a lot in a sport with a lot of media noise. So he applied for it because he was a resident in Spain and because his parents did have a Spanish passport.
In the end, with the help of the UCAM Cartagena Athletics Club and the president of the RFEA, Raúl Chapado, the process was completed and Katir started to compete under the Spanish flag. He never wanted to compete for Morocco, as he declared on more than one occasion.
Although he missed out on the European Athletics Championships in Glasgow in 2019 because he did not have the nationality, he could have done so on the basis of his performance as he came first in the 3,000m.
That was the end of the tunnel for Mo Katir, who in 2021 participated in the European Indoor Championships in Torun (Poland) where he finished 4th in the 3000m and the Tokyo Olympic Games where he was 8th in the 5000m.
His personal bests already foreshadowed this bronze medal at the World Championships in Eugene and, possibly, there are more to come to give shine to Spanish athletics.
Another of his achievements was winning the San Silvestre Vallecana in 2021, a merit that made him the first Spaniard to do so since 2003 and which further encouraged the large community of runners in Spain to practice a sport that fashion has made a permanent fixture for many athletes.