Oussama Mellouli

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Oussama Mellouli
Oussama Mellouli in 2013
Personal information
Native nameأسامة الملولي
Full nameOussama Mellouli
Nickname(s)The Mediterranean's Shark, The Shark of Carthage, Ous
Nationality Tunisia
Born (1984-02-16) 16 February 1984 (age 40)
La Marsa, Tunisia
Height1.92 m (6 ft 4 in)
Weight84 kg (185 lb)
Sport
SportSwimming
StrokesFree, IM
ClubTunisia Esperance of Tunisia
College teamUSC Trojans (USA)
Medal record
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 2008 Beijing 1500 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2012 London 10 km marathon
Bronze medal – third place 2012 London 1500 m freestyle
World Championships (LC)
Gold medal – first place 2009 Rome 1500 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2013 Barcelona 5 km open water
Silver medal – second place 2009 Rome 400 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2009 Rome 800 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2003 Barcelona 400 m medley
Bronze medal – third place 2005 Montreal 400 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2005 Montreal 400 m medley
Bronze medal – third place 2013 Barcelona 10 km open water
World Championships (SC)
Gold medal – first place 2004 Indianapolis 400 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2010 Dubai 1500 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2010 Dubai 400 m medley
Silver medal – second place 2014 Doha 1500 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2004 Indianapolis 200 m medley
Bronze medal – third place 2010 Dubai 200 m freestyle
Bronze medal – third place 2010 Dubai 400 m freestyle
Mediterranean Games
Gold medal – first place 2005 Almería 800 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2005 Almería 200 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2005 Almería 400 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2009 Pescara 200 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2009 Pescara 200 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2009 Pescara 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2009 Pescara 400 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2009 Pescara 1500 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2013 Mersin 400 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2013 Mersin 1500 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2001 Tunis 400 m medley
Silver medal – second place 2013 Mersin 200 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2013 Mersin 200 m medley
Silver medal – second place 2013 Mersin 400 m freestyle
Pan Arab Games
Gold medal – first place
2011 Doha
 50 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 100 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 200 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 400 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 1500 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 200 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 200 m breaststroke
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 50 m butterfly
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 100 m butterfly
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 200 m butterfly
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 200 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 400 m medley
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 4×100 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2011 Doha 4×200 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2011 Doha 4×100 m medley

Oussama "Ous" Mellouli (

African record holder, and trains with the USC Trojans team based at the University of Southern California
, where he studied as a computer science undergraduate and swam collegiately.

Since returning from an Adderall-related drugs ban, Oussama Mellouli was the 1500 m freestyle World champion at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships with a winning time of 14:37.28, then the second-best performance of all time. Mellouli was the gold medalist in the 1500 freestyle at the 2008 Olympics, the bronze medalist in the 1500 freestyle at the 2012 Olympics, and the gold medalist in the 10 km marathon swim at the 2012 Olympics. He is the first Olympian to win medals in both the open water and the pool in a single Olympics.[1]

Biography

Born in Tunis, Mellouli left Tunisia at the age of 15 to study and train in France. He enrolled in USC Viterbi School of Engineering in 2003 after graduating from the Lycee Technologique du Rempart in Marseille, France. He swam for the USC Trojans and graduated in 2007 with a computer science bachelor's degree. He is a scholarship holder with the Olympic Solidarity program.[citation needed]

Swimming timeline

2000 Olympics

At the 2000 Olympics, he finished 43rd in the 400 IM.

2001

Mellouli won 1 silver medal in the 400m IM at the 2001 Mediterranean Games, in Tunis, Tunisia.

2003

Mellouli first established himself on the world scene at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona, Spain, where he won a bronze in the 400m Individual Medley finishing behind László Cseh and a world record performance from Michael Phelps.

2004

At the

Indianapolis, USA, where he won the first international-level gold medal in swimming for Tunisia, in the 400m IM, finishing over a second ahead of second and third-place finishers Robin Francis and Eric Shanteau
. Later, at the meet, he would win bronze in the 200m IM.

2005

He was able to better his Athens mark with his bronze medal swim in the 400 IM event at the 2005 World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, Canada. He also won the bronze medal in the 400 freestyle at that same event. He also won three gold medals (800 m freestyle, 400m medley, 200m medley) at the XVth Mediterranean Games in Almería, Spain.

2006

On 1 December 2006, Oussama Mellouli beat Michael Phelps in the 400m IM at the U.S. Open in West Lafayette: Mellouli clocked 4:15.61, ahead of Phelps with 4:18.32.[2] This swim was subsequently placed within Mellouli's 18-month doping ban, and the results nullified, as the drug test where the banned substance was found occurred at this meet (see the section below for further information).

2007

On 19 February 2007, he broke his own African Record in the 200m individual medley for the fourth time since 2003 at the USA Swimming Grand Prix meet, held at the Mizzou Aquatic Center at the University of Missouri. He also set a new African record in the 400 meter individual medley.

On 25 March 2007, he won the silver in the 400 m freestyle (3:45.12) at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. Three days later, on 28 March, he swam to the first Tunisian World Championship in swimming, winning the 800m freestyle in a then African Record of 7:46.95 — one of the top 10 fastest times ever. However, due to his positive drug-testing result from an in-competition test from December 2006 and the 18-month competition ban imposed on him on 11 September 2007 by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), retroactive from 30 November 2006 forward, his 2007 World Championships results have been nullified. He was also a finalist in the 400 m individual medley, where he originally finished fourth in 4:11.68.

Following the 11 September 2007 ruling by CAS, Mellouli was not allowed to compete again until mid-2008. Mellouli's results from 2007 have been nullified, per his September 2007 doping suspension, related to his positive test from December 2006 (see the section below).

2008 Olympics

Mellouli came into the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China entered two events, the 400m and 1500m freestyle events. In his first event, the 400m free, despite setting a new African record in the final, he could only manage fifth place in a time of 3:43.45. Mellouli would go on to win the 1500m freestyle and set a new African record. In doing so, he became the first African male swimmer to ever win an Olympic gold medal in an individual swimming event (the South African men's 4 × 100 m Free Relay won the event at the 2004 Olympics).

2009

Mellouli won 5 gold medals (200m and 400m individual medley, and 200m, 400m, and 1500m freestyles) at the XVI Mediterranean Games in Pescara, Italy.

In the 2009 World Aquatics Championships, held in Rome during the summer, Mellouli won a gold medal in the 1500 meter freestyle and two silver medals in the 400 meter freestyle and 800 meter freestyle.

2010

Mellouli won 4 medals ( 1 gold in the 1500 freestyle, 1 silver in the 400 medley, and 2 bronzes in the 200 m freestyle and the 400 m freestyle) at the

2010 FINA Short Course World Championships
(25m) in Dubai, UAE.

2011

Mellouli won 16 medals ( 15 gold and 1 silver ) at the

2011 Pan Arab Games
in Doha, Qatar.

2012 Olympics

Mellouli won 2 medals (1 gold in the 10km marathon[3] and 1 bronze in the 1500m freestyle) at the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, UK. He became the first person to win medals in the pool and open-water swimming in the same Olympics.

2013

Mellouli won 1 gold medal in the 5km marathon at the 2013 World Championships, in Barcelona, Spain.

2016 Olympics

Mellouli participated in two competitions in

10km marathon, finishing in 12th place with 1:53:06 (+0:00:07 of the gold winner).[5]

2020 Olympics

In July 2021, Mellouli had initially decided to withdraw from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo due to a dispute with the Tunisian federation for alleged forgery since 2017.[6] However, he later announced that he would compete at the Tokyo Games, as the Tunisian Olympic Committee President Mahrez Boussian had promised to settle the dispute.[7]

2021 Olympics

On Wednesday, August 4, 2021, Tunisian swimmer Oussama Mellouli finished 20th in the 10 km open water marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. Mellouli was thus unable to earn another medal on his sixth appearance at the Olympic Games.

Positive drug test

A few weeks after the conclusion of the

FINA, the international governing body of the sport, had discovered that Tunisian authorities had known about the positive test but had only given him a warning. FINA/WADA rules state that athletes must be given a 2-year ban from the sport when they test positive for a banned substance. Accordingly, FINA took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport
(CAS), demanding stiffer sanctions.

Mellouli has since admitted that he took the

ADD medication Adderall, a stimulant and a form of amphetamine. Mellouli did not have a prescription for the drug, having claimed to have received it from another USC student shortly before the US Open. He argued that he took the pill to help himself with writing a term paper (to sustain or enhance his academic performance) in the days leading up to the weekend US Open meet and that the drug was not intended as a performance-enhancing substance for competitive swimming. However, amphetamines are on the official banned substances list and can/do help swimming performance.[8]

Wikinews has related news:

CAS ruled on Mellouli's case on 11 September 2007, ruling against him and issuing him an 18-month competition suspension retroactively beginning on 30 November 2006. As a result of this sanction, all his results from the 2006 U.S. Open through the competitions he swam in 2007, including the 2007 World Championships, were nullified. His ban from competition covered most, but not all, of the qualification window for the 2008 Olympics. As the retroactive nullification of results wiped out all of his qualifying times for the 2008 Games, he ended up with just a week or two after the ban in order to qualify (which he did).

Achievements

See also

References

  1. ^ "Ous Mellouli Looking for Repeat Gold in Rio". SwimSwam. June 10, 2016.
  2. ^ US Open 2006 results: Men's 400 IM final. Archived on the USA Swimming website and retrieved 2009-07-23.
  3. ^ "Mellouli wins men's 10km swimming marathon". Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  4. ^ Oussama MELLOULI - Olympic Swimming | Tunisia, olympic.org. Accessed August 23, 2016.
  5. ^ "Oussama Mellouli". rio2016.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-25. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  6. ^ "Ous Mellouli Embroiled in Legal Dispute with Federation Ahead of 6th Olympics". SwimSwam. July 17, 2021.
  7. ^ "Tokyo 2020: Mellouli changes his mind, will swim in Olympics". Sport Star. July 22, 2021.
  8. PDF) – relevant quote: The following stimulants are prohibited, including both their optical (D- and L-) isomers where relevant: ...amphetamine... and other substances with similar chemical structure or similar biological effect(s). (p. 7) This passage verbatim matches the content of article section Adderall#Chemistry
    .

External links