Women at Courir pour le Plaisir in Casablanca (© Sean Wallace-Jones)
Casablanca, MorrocoNawal El Moutawakel’s Courir pour le Plaisir women’s race in Casablanca achieved new heights in its eighth edition with over 22,000 women entered for the event.
With six victories in the previous seven editions, Zhor el Kamch had been the undisputed queen of the Courir Pour Le Plaisir international women’s race in Casablanca, until today, when she was dethroned by the finishing kick of Ethiopia’s Teyiba Erkesso
Once the leaders had dropped the mass runners far behind them, Erkesso and El Kamch distanced themselves from the other leading elite runners, including IAAF Ambassador Tegla Loroupe, who was running here to help promote the cause of sport as a vector of social change and improvement for women around the world and especially on the African continent.
Running side by side for most of the course, Erkesso pulled away from the Moroccan favourite with half a kilometre to go and sprinted for home, where she crossed the finish line in 31:53 to El Kamch’s 32:07. The diminutive Kenyan Magdalaine Syompne took third place in a time of 32:14.
As always, however, the story here was less one of the performance of the group of elite runners who had made the trip to this commercial capital of Morocco, but rather that of the thousands of women, young and old, who followed them through the streets of Casablanca, some walking, some running; some in shorts and tee shirts, many wearing traditional clothing. There were those with their heir free in the sea breezes that blow in from the Atlantic, others wearing baseball caps and many more with their heads covered in line with Muslim tradition.
This was a party, for women!
Amongst the crowd some 22,000 strong were mothers with their children and others who were obviously grandmothers; showing their support and solidarity were women from around the world: a team from the French capital’s women race ‘La Parisienne’, 15 women from the IOC headquarters in Lausanne; a gathering of women participating in a Nike sponsored conference on empowering women, which was scheduled here to coincide with ‘Nawal’s race’ as the local women call it; and last but not least, Marie José Perec.
Perec was invited here as a patron of this year’s race but entered into the spirit of things to the full, leaving the VIPs and donning a pair of running leggings and the tee shirt of the race and joining the mass to jog around the course in a little over an hour, chatting to the local women as she went.
During her active athletics career, the ‘Gazelle’ as she was aptly nicknamed was more used to lining up on the track with seven other sprinters opposing her, but here she was delighted to be running with what has become an amazing demonstration of the power of sport to promote the cause of women’s rights in this liberal Muslim country.
“It is a great thing”, she said. “This is proof that sport can change so many things. Who would have thought that a little lady like that (Nawal) could have done so much. It is really not easy to get women to come down into the streets, especially in a Muslim country. It is fantastic what she has achieved.
“I am a great observer and it is fantastic the way that she has built up her team and the support that they give to her.”
During her visit to Casablanca, Perec agreed to become an IAAF Ambassador and to help promote the cause of athletics around the world.
“The sport gave me so much, more than I could ever have imagined when I was a little girl,” she explained. “I grew up on a tiny island with 400,000 inhabitants and really knew nothing of the world before I started to compete.
“I already do work with Unesco and other bodies and when I talk to a young child in Africa, for example, I would give anything for that child to be able to experience even a quarter of what I have experienced, thanks to athletics.”
Today’s race once again demonstrated the power of sport – not elite competition, but the sense of well being that exercise in the company of one’s peers gives – to bring together people from all social levels, of all ages. Courir pour le Plaisir is a tangible demonstration that athletics can help to bring about a new perception, can be a symbol of solidarity and an expression of freedom, of the desire and right to be healthy. Nawal el Moutawakel’s annual party was once again a great success.