He is the only French athlete with Alain Mimoun to have won three Olympic Games in a row. Mahiedine Mekhissi, specialist in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, double world medalist (2011 and 2013) and five times European champion, announced on Wednesday that he was retiring from sport.
“I no longer take pleasure in going to train, he explains in an interview with the team. I felt it was time to say stop. If I ran, it was to be world champion, Olympic champion, win medals, break records. To achieve these goals, if you don’t feel like it, there’s no point in continuing. She was no longer there and I wanted to move on, to do something else with my life.
In three Olympiads, Mekhissi won his third medal in 2016. Silver in Beijing and London, bronze in Rio. In a sport where Europeans touch the Holy Grail when they manage, one day in their career, to earn a place on the podium in the midst of the ultra-dominant Kenyans, it’s phenomenal. Mekhissi even became the first athlete in his discipline, of all nationalities, to climb on three Olympic podiums.