RICHMOND, Ky. – Former Eastern Kentucky University student-athletes Soufiane Bouchikhi and Thijs Nijhuis will compete at the 2019 IAAF World Track and Field Championships this week in Doha, Quatar.
Nijhuis will represent Denmark in the men's marathon on Saturday, October 5, at 5 p.m. ET (midnight in Doha).
It will be Nijhuis' first time competing at the World Championships. He qualified by running a world standard time of 2:14.18 at the Düsseldorf Marathon in Germany in April.
It was only the second marathon in which Nijhuis has competed in his life.
To make that even more impressive, Nijhuis has trained for the World Championships while also a full-time medical student at Århus University in Århus, Denmark.
Nijhuis was a key member of an EKU men's cross country team that qualified for three straight NCAA Championships (2011 to 2013), including the 2013 squad that won the NCAA Southeast Region title and finished 15
th nationally. He also represented EKU in the 10,000 meters at the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Track Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Bouchikhi will represent his native Belgium in the men's 10,000 meters on Sunday, October 6, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Bouchikhi competed at the 2017 World Championships in London, finishing 16
th out of 42 competitors in the 5,000 meters with a time of 13:28.6. The native of Antwerp placed 11
th in his heat, just missing out on qualifying for the finals by one spot and less than one second.
Bouchikhi has run a personal-best time of 27:41.2 in the 10,000 meters (May of 2018).
Bouchikhi graduated from Eastern in the spring of 2014 with a degree in Applied Engineering Management and Technology. From 2010 to 2014, he was one of the most consistently dominant runners ever to don the Maroon and White. He was a six-time All-American, a four-time OVC cross country champion, a 13-time OVC track gold medalist and he still owns two EKU track records (indoor mile and indoor 3,000 meters).
The World Championships are being broadcast live on NBC, NBCSN and the Olympic Channel, and streamed live on NBC Sports Gold.
