Abdalelah Haroun

Abdalelah Haroun was born in Sudan and began his sporting career with passions for football and boxing. It was not until the age of 16, therefore, that he was recognized as a potential track athlete and moved to the Arabian Gulf to compete for Qatar. The recruitment paid off, as Haroun won the 400 metres at both the Arab and Asian Championships in 2015. The following year, he captured two more gold medals in that event at the Asian Indoor and World U20 Championships, and was second at the World Indoor Championships, behind Pavel Maslák of Czechia. He also won the 4x400 metres relay at the Asian Indoors, alongside Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla and the non-Olympians Mohamed Nasir Abbas and Baker Haydel Abdalla. All of this led to his selection to represent Qatar at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where he was eliminated in the semi-finals.

Haroun’s successes continued into 2017, when he took bronze in the 400 metres at the World Championships, behind South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk and Bahamian Steven Gardiner. In 2018 he captured the 400 metres and 4x400 metres relay titles at both the Asian Indoor Championships and the Asian Games, but was disqualified from that year’s World Championships for false starting. At the 2019 World Championships he failed to advance beyond the heats in the 400 metres. He was recuperating from an injury and hoping to qualify for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics when he was killed in a car accident, at the age of only 24.

Personal Best: 400 – 44.07 (2018).