Nawal El Moutawakel welcomes Ethiopian runners to Casblanca (© IAAF)
On Sunday 22 May, an estimated 20,000 women will take to the streets of Casablanca for the 7th edition of ‘Courir pour le Plaisir’, the annual race for women organized by Nawal El Moutawakel.
For the race’s first edition in 1993, just 1,381 women braved the venture of running the streets of the economic capital of Morocco, a first in a Muslim country. In 1994 they were 5,000; then the event took a break before restarting in 2001, for a third edition that saw the number of participants rising and Courir pour le Plaisir (Running for Pleasure) become a fixture on the international road running calendar and a firm date for thousands of Moroccan women.
Last year, Courir pour le Plaisir attracted a record number of women, with 14,500 donning running shoes and shorts, or just running, jogging or walking in their everyday clothes and, in most cases, proudly wearing over their attire the tee shirt of the race and their bib.
This year, that record participation has been wiped out with the organisers, the Association Marocaine Sport et Developpement (AMSD, the Moroccan Sports and Development Association is an NGO founded by Nawal El Moutawakel to promote awareness of the benefits of sport amongst Moroccans and to help assist promising young athletes in all areas of sport), closing the inscriptions at a massive 20,000 participants.
For five of the six previous editions, the title of Courir pour le Plaisir has been won by Morocco’s Zhor El Kamch, with Tegla Loroupe managing to snatch her crown in 1994, but this year, although the Moroccan returns to Casablanca for her seventh participation, she will be strongly challenged by a pair of young Ethiopians who have made the trip from Addis Ababa determined to end El Kamch’s domination of what has become probably the largest mass participation women’s race in the world.
El Kamch set her personal best over 10 km on the road here in 2003 with a time of 31 minutes 38 seconds, but has lost some form this year, with a time of 2:36:54 in the Boston Marathon, well off her marathon best of 2:26:10 from Rotterdam (admittedly a faster course) in 2004.
The two young Ethiopians, Adaneche Zekiros Adane an Letay Negashe Hadish come to Casablance with, respectively, half marathon bests of 1:12:35 and 1:13:10 and, for Hadish a 10 km PB of 31:40.
It remains to be seen now whether their youth and determination will win the day over the experience of El Kamch who will be buoyed up by the support of her home crowd and the knowledge that she is heading a field of 20,000 of her compatriots.
