“Of course, now the expectations are higher,” says Mohamed Abdilaahi, looking ahead to the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Xiamen on Saturday.
The 27-year-old German is at the midway point of his early-season trip to China, and the opening act was a roaring success – Abdilaahi taking almost five seconds off Dieter Baumann’s German 3000m record in Shanghai/Keqiao last Saturday, clocking 7:25.77 to claim his first ever Diamond League win.
This Saturday, his 5000m national record of 12:53.63 will be under threat as he takes on a world-class field in Xiamen. It’s fair to say he’s now developed a taste for winning.
“I hope the conditions will allow a fast race,” he says. “I’m aiming to reproduce what I did last weekend.”
Photo credit: MARTA GORCZYŃSKA for Diamond League AG
For Abdilaahi, it’s been a breakthrough season – one that was many years in the making. The talent has always been there – Abdilaahi was the European U-23 5000m champion in 2021 – but it’s taken a long time to truly understand how to train.
“I think it was possible to run fast six years ago because I was able to run high mileage, to have crazy workouts, but the structure of everything was not correct,” he admits. “We learned from other athletes. We learned from other coaches and all this experience led to the system we have now. We know how to train, how to de-load before races.”
He cites the influence of the Norwegian method, which gained global recognition in recent years through the success of Jakob Ingebrigtsen. “The Norwegian philosophy made a big difference for all of us,” he says. “The double threshold is something we are including in our training and we take the lactate (levels) and look at the heart rate to control everything now.”
Abdilaahi is coached by his father, Ahmed, who ran a 1:51 800m as a teenager but who had little experience – or knowledge – about elite athletics. Together, they’ve accrued that across many years, assimilating knowledge from various coaches, picking up lessons from athletes like Jimmy Gressier and Andreas Almgren, who Abdilaahi sometimes trains with on altitude camps.
He didn’t start competitive athletics until the age of 16, but the love of running was there from an early age. Abdilaahi recalls being out for a walk with his father when he was five or six. “I just started to run and I didn’t want to stop and at one point he said, ‘You’ve got to stop, this is too much.’ And then I started to vomit and he was like, ‘This guy’s crazy.’”
His dad recognised his talent early on but never pushed him into athletics, allowing Abdilaahi to follow his early passion, football, through much of his youth. Still, he typically won any races he did at school sports days, especially over longer distances, and success came fast when he returned to the sport in a more formal way at the age of 16.
“I was pretty serious from the start,” he says. “Because it’s not like I had to wait many years for success. That’s why I was always like, ‘I’m talented, I need to be focused. I can achieve a lot of things.’”
Just a year after taking up athletics, Abdilaahi finished fourth in the European U-18 3000m final in Tbilisi. He chipped away at his times in the years that followed, securing European U-23 5000m gold in 2021 and competing at the Tokyo Olympics that same year.
With strong support from the German federation and local sponsors, he never really considered taking the US scholarship route for his university years, instead doing a number of courses in Germany. He’s currently enrolled at a university in Düsseldorf, doing an online degree in sports business management, which allows him the flexibility to be away from home for long stretches.
His younger brother, Yassin, is also a gifted athlete, having won silver at the European U20 Championships over 3000m in 2021, and while studies are currently his top priority, Yassin could well join him on the international stage in the years to come.
In training, Mohamed typically runs 170-190km per week, but the volume is less of a focus than hitting the right intensities and understanding which workouts to do when. “It was a big process because before I was sometimes overtraining,” he says. “Now I give my body the rest to re-absorb the training and to get fresh again for everything. You have to be smart, to really give your body time to recover.
“It took us so long and we worked with so many coaches to figure out what works what doesn’t. I’m known for really pushing too hard. My problem was never to run high mileage or to run fast in training. My problem was to show what I can in competitions. It took me many years to figure out which workouts kill you. Now we know how to control the workouts to do in the right moment, and this is the biggest change.”
Photo credit: MARTA GORCZYŃSKA for Diamond League AG
Abdilaahi finished fourth in the 3000m at last year’s Diamond League final in Zurich, setting a PB of 7:37.31, but after breaking the German 10,000m record with 26:56.58 in California in March this year, he knew he was capable of much faster when he travelled to China last week. He had done a workout with Andreas Almgren before the race and it told him something special might be in the works.
He discussed with his father about requesting the pacemakers to run 59 seconds per lap, or 7:22 pace, but knew “everyone will be looking crazy” at him if he did so. Instead, he accepted the designated pace of 7:30, with Abdilaahi proving much the strongest through the swift closing kilometre of 2:25.
“I was expecting a fast time, I was also expecting to be in the mix with the guys,” he says. “But to really do it and win the first Diamond League was really emotional for me.”
There is lots to look forward to in the months ahead. Abdilaahi has yet to decide which events to focus on at the European Championships in August, with a 1500m-5000m double possible but a 5000m-10,000m more likely. He is also eyeing late-season Diamond League races in Zurich and Brussels, and still weighing up his plans around the World Ultimate Championships in Budapest and the World Road Running Championships a week later in Copenhagen.
But first up: that 5000m race in Xiamen on Saturday night. Another chance at rewriting a national record. Another shot at Diamond League success.
He will go to the line in the form of his life. And now that he’s tasted victory at this level, he’d love to make winning a habit.
Cathal Dennehy for Xiamen Diamond League