Qatar Olympic team announce sprinter Abdalelah Haroun, 24, has died

Qatar’s Olympic team have confirmed that sprinter Abdalelah Haroun has died at the age of 24.

Haroun won the 400m bronze medal at the 2017 World Athletics Championships, and reports from News18 suggest he passed away in a car crash.

Qatar’s team posted a message on Twitter saying: ‘Team #Qatar sprinter and world 400m bronze medalist Abdalelah Haroun died today.’

Qatar’s Olympic team have confirmed that sprinter Abdalelah Haroun has died at the age of 24

Haroun won the 400m bronze medal at the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London

The track and field sprinter officially burst on to the scene in 2015 when he ran an Asian indoor record of 45.39 seconds at the XL Galan in February 2015 in Stockholm.

A second-place finish however arrived a year later when he won the silver medal at the 2016 World Indoor Championships in the United States, a year before his World Championships success in London.

Two gold medals followed at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta in the 400m and 4X400m relay event. 

Haroun was born in Sudan on New Year’s Day in 1997 and ran 49 seconds in his first ever 400m race at the age of 16.

A second place finish arrived in 2016 when he won the 400m world indoor silver in the US

But heeding advice from a coach to run for Qatar, he moved there to live with an uncle soon after, before recording a national U18 record of 45.74 in Doha in April 2014 in his second full season in the sport.

That set him up as one of the world’s most promising young 400m sprinters, which was then confirmed when he ran an Asian indoor record at the XL Galan in Stockholm. 

That run also ranked as the third fastest in history by a junior category athlete and the fastest ever indoor debut. His stock then continued to rise as he comfortably beat Egypt’s Anas Beshr by nearly a second at the Arab Athletics Championships in April 2015 with a time of 44.68.

He then established himself as one of Asia’s top senior athletes at the Asian Championships in June 2015 after overcoming Saudi Arabia’s two-time defending champion Yousef Masrahi in the 400m final with the same time as he managed in Bahrain. 

Haroun was born in Sudan but was urged by his coach to move to Qatar at a young age

He also ran at the Doha Diamond League meeting that year and another run under 45 seconds also saw him win the non-Diamond-race contest. 

Haroun also made his full IAAF Diamond League debut in 2015, finishing fifth in the Men’s 400 Metre Dash Prefontaine Classic with a time of 44.80 seconds.

He enjoyed a splendid indoor campaign in 2016, banking the Asian Championships title in the 400m and 4x400m relay, before claiming silver at the World Indoor Championships in Portland.

The race in Oregon was his first senior global podium spot after he finished behind Czech Pavel Maslak with a time of 45.59 seconds.

At the end of a long season which had seen him win the World U20 Championships 400m gold in Poland with a time of 44.81 seconds, Haroun exited the 2016 Rio Olympic Games at the semi-final stage.

He enjoyed a splendid indoor campaign in 2016, banking two Asian Championships titles

But he bounced back at the World Championships in London in 2017, finishing third behind Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa and Steven Gardiner from The Bahamas.

In 2018, he went on to enjoy two gold medals in the 400m and the 4x400m relay at the Asian Indoor Championships in Tehran and the same two golds at the Asian Games in Jakarta. 

That same year in his 10 outdoor one-lap finals, he recorded nine sub-45-second times, including a national record of 44.07 when streaking to victory at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in London.

But the 2019 World Championships did not go as planned for him, after he failed to make it through the heats into the semi-final in Doha in the 400m. 

In 2018, he went on to enjoy two gold medals in the Asian Indoor Championships in Tehran