HE went to school with soccer star Thierry Henry, he can speak French, Arabic and English, he is an Australian champion, Olympian and a Commonwealth Games medallist and tomorrow he will be in Bathurst.
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His name is Youcef Abdi, the Algerian born athlete who now represents Australia in steeplechase.
Abdi will make the trip from his current home base in Sydney to Bathurst to take in some of the action of the annual Blayney to Bathurst cycling race, but while he is here he won’t be on a bike but instead go running.
When learning that Abdi, the 1500 metres bronze medallist from the 2002 Commonwealth Games, wanted a local to go running with him tomorrow morning, Greg White was quick to put his hand up.
“It’s a good opportunity to be able to meet someone like that, I think he’s the current 3000 metre steeplechase national champion and has been the national champion several times in the past as well,” White said.
“I just hope he’s not here to run flat out. I just hope he says he wants to go for a training run for an hour and a half, I could handle that.”
As well as being able to show Bathurst to the four-time Australian champion who started running at 14 to accompany his brother who was scared of running in the bush by himself, White is hoping to pick up some tips from Abdi.
“Hell yeah, I hope to learn from him,” White said.
“I don’t say I will learn much from him about steeplechase, but more I hope we will talk about training and the sort of work he has done to get this far.”
Abdi, who fell in love with Australia when he came here for the 1996 world junior championships, has a personal best time for the 3000m steeplechase of eight minutes, 16.36 seconds. He clocked that when placing sixth at the Beijing Olympics.
