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Abderrazak Charik: “It’d be a dream to represent France at Olympics”

Abderrazak Charik: "It'd be a dream to represent France at Olympics"

French athlete opens up about what it would mean to run the marathon at Paris 2024

Not many athletes get the opportunity to represent their country at a home Olympics.

Abderrazak Charik is hoping that he can add himself to that illustrious list this summer. The dream is to wear the French colours during the Olympic marathon.

To be considered for selection, Charik will have to run the qualifying standard of 2:08:10 before the cut-off date of May 12.

He attempted to get the standard at this past February’s Seville Marathon but was agonisingly short and clocked 2:08:42.

Last October, Charik ran his current personal best of 2:08:37 at the Amsterdam Marathon.

Morhad Amdouni (2:03:47), Mehdi Frère (2:05:43), Nicolas Navarro (2:05:53), Felix Bour (2:06:46) and Benjamin Choqeurt (2:07:42) are the five French athletes who have recorded times below the qualification standard.

It would mean a lot to Charik if he’s able to add his name to that roster.

The 26-year-old will race over 10km at the ASICS Paris Festival of Running on April 5.

AW chats exclusively to Charik below:

Abderrazak Charik in Seville (Albin Durand)

You ran a personal best of 2:08:37 at last year’s Amsterdam Marathon. How do you reflect on that? 

It was very nice and I was happy to produce this time in Amsterdam. I ran 2:10:33 at the Seville Marathon earlier on in the season [April 2023] and it was another chance for me to beat my personal best.

It’s not far now until the Olympics so I need to get the qualification mark for that ahead of the Games.

What would it mean for you to represent France at the Paris Olympics? 

It would be a dream and big opportunity to run in Paris. I’d be so happy. Paris is a big city with a huge story.

Maybe I’m a little bit crazy doing the marathon! When you run the 5km, 10km or half marathon, you always figure out what distance you are best at. For me, it was the half marathon and it made sense to step up to the marathon. I like the longer distances.

When I made my debut marathon in Paris back in 2021 I ran 2:13. Then, in Seville, I ran 2:10 before the 2:08 in Amsterdam. So I’ve progressed and I hope to run 2:06!

What’s your view on the evolution of marathon running? 

The shoe technology has made a big impact in training, racing and recovery. It’s now better to run the longer distances. It’s not the case with the marathon that you can just train for two weeks and go and run it because you need to focus for months in advance. It’s not easy…

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