Morocco's Olympic 5,000 and 1,500 metres champion Hicham El Guerrouj announced his retirement from athletics on Monday.

"I am quitting competition," a tearful El Guerrouj told a news conference.

"I hope the authorities and Moroccan athletes will continue to work so Moroccan athletics continues to be strong," he said.

"I have no willingness or motivation to continue competing. I am quitting racing to spend more time with my family and focus on my business."

The 31-year-old, considered the greatest 1,500 metres runner in history, has not competed since the 2004 Athens Games.

He missed last season with a virus and pulled out of March's indoor world championships in Moscow [Images] with a back injury.

"El Guerrouj does not have the form or the strength to train for such a high level of competition and win. He has to quit the running track," his coach Abdelkader Kada said.

WIDELY EXPECTED

His retirement was widely expected in Morocco after he told local reporters in March that he spent sleepless nights pondering his future outside of athletics.

The Moroccan holds the world record of three minutes 26.0 seconds for the 1,500 and has won the world title over the distance four times. He also has the world marks for the mile (3:43.13) and 2,000 metres (4:44.79).

"Hicham is a living legend of our sport," Lamine Diack, president of the sport's governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, said in a statement.

"He has brightened up the athletics' world with his excellent performances, impressed with his elegant running style, and drawn gasps because of his determination to always push back the boundaries of his own limits.

"But what I want to remember about his exemplary career is not only his multiple records, world records and other hard-earned honours, but above all else, his generosity and kindness as a human being," Diack added.

DEMONS EXORCISED

El Guerrouj's 1,500-5,000 double in Athens was the first since Finn Paavo Nurmi's in 1924 and exorcised the demons from his previous Olympic appearances.

At the 1996 Atlanta Games, El Guerrouj fell at the bell and four years later in Sydney he was outsprinted by Kenyan Noah Ngeny.

But in Athens, El Guerrouj confirmed his greatness in emphatic fashion.

He won the 1,500 metres final in style, pouncing at 800 to hold off Kenyan rival Bernard Lagat. Four days later, he won the most eagerly awaited track clash of the Games in the 5,000 against Ethiopia's 10,000 metres champion Kenenisa Bekele.

El Guerrouj won the first of his four world titles in 1997, also in Athens, ending Algerian Noureddine Morceli's six-year reign as champion.

He shattered Morceli's 1,500 world record by over a second a year later and became practically unbeatable over the distance until suffering a shock defeat in Rome in July 2004.

El Guerrouj finished eighth on the track where he had set his 1,500 and mile world records for only his fourth loss in eight years, two of which were at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics [Images].

He said his form had been affected by breathing problems but he appeared to have put his health problems behind him at the Olympics.