1,500 metres, Women

Algeria’s Hassiba Boulmerka had won the 1991 World Championships at this distance, but becoming a world-class runner had not been an easy task for her. A Muslim from Algeria, she was singled out by Islamic fundamentalists who considered it shameful for her to run with her “legs naked.” There were rumors of a possible assassination attempt in Barcelona if she ran. Supported by her parents she moved to Germany early in 1992 where she continued her training. The final was led out by Russian Lyudmila Rogachova with Boulmerka on her shoulder at 800 metres. They maintained those positions for the third lap, before Boulmerka pulled ahead just before the final turn. She held the lead to the finish for the gold medal, with Rogachova second.

China’s Qu Yunxia placed third. In 1993 she would break the vaunted world record that had been set by Tatyana Kazankina in 1980. Trained by the Chinese martinet Ma Junren, who pushed his runners mercilessly at a high-altitude training camp, Qu and several other Chinese runners set startling world records at the 1993 Chinese National Championships. The marks were considered by many to be “too good.” It was known that Ma fed his runners an unusual diet of turtle soup extract, and an elixir containing products from caterpillars. But it was also rumored that he fed them other performance-enhancing agents as well. Most of those runners quickly disappeared from the world scene once drug testing came to China.