Sports career

Native of Kénitra, young Saïd and his family moved to Fez in 1966. Before becoming an athlete, Saïd wanted to be a footballer and played in the youth teams of the local club, MAS. But the teenager gradually abandoned the round ball to devote himself to running and was spotted by a certain Aziz Daouda, then an executive at the Royal Moroccan Athletics Federation. In 1978, Aouita was selected for the World Cross Country Championships in Glasgow. But for his first international competition, he finished in 34th place. Marked, he trained very hard and from 1979, the young man broke all the records of Morocco in the 5,000, 1,500, and 800 m and managed to obtain a state scholarship to train in Marignane, France. He distinguished himself notably by winning the Cross des As du Figaro in 1981. In 1983, it was the revelation during the World Athletics Championships where he won the bronze medal in the 1,500 m. He confirmed by winning the same year the Mediterranean Games in Casablanca in the 800 m and 1,500 m, then the African Championships in 1984. The same year, he caused a sensation at the Los Angeles Olympic Games by winning the gold medal in the 5,000 m, a distance where he lacked experience.

He managed to break the world records for the 1,500 m and 5,000 m in the space of a month in 1985. He is the first man to go under the thirteen-minute mark with 12 min 58 s 39 in the 5,000 m discipline. He is the only athlete, to this day, to have won the athletics grand prix 3 times. He held the world records for 5 distances, including 2 Olympic ones. He lined up 44 consecutive victories over 9 distances between July 1985 and September 1987 before giving up on a technical distance that is not his (3,000 m steeplechase). At the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, he was the great attraction of the athletics events in the same way as Carl Lewis, because he was registered for the 800 m, 1,500 m, and 5,000 m, with the last 2 finals on the same day! But, poorly prepared, he finally only lined up for the 800 m where he won the bronze medal despite a calf strain and had to give up the other 2 events. Before that, Aouita had also lined up about twenty consecutive victories over distances ranging from 800 m to 5,000 m. He has a series of 115 victories in 119 races contested between September 1983 and September 1990. His strong point was his breathtaking acceleration and his incredible top speed, notably his finish (last straight line), without forgetting his recovery capacity and his phenomenal endurance which allowed him to be the most complete (versatile) athlete in the history of world middle-distance running.
He is the only athlete in the world to have been able to hold the world records for 5 middle-distance distances in addition to the 2nd best performance in history in the mile and the 6th time in history in the 10,000 m, without forgetting that he was the only runner in the world in the 1980s to be able to run the 800 m in less than 1 min 44, the 1,500 m in less than 3 min 30, the Mile in less than 3 min 47, the 3,000 m in less than 7 min 30, the 5,000 m in less than 13 min, the 10,000 m in less than 27 min 27, which earned him the nickname "decathlete of middle-distance running" attributed to him by the French daily L'Équipe.