RICHMOND, Ky. – Former Eastern Kentucky University student-athletes Thijs Nijhuis and Soufiane Bouchikhi competed at the IAAF World Track and Field Championships over the weekend in Doha, Qatar.
 
Nijhuis – representing Denmark – took 31^st in the men's marathon on Saturday night. With temperatures hovering around 85 degrees at the beginning of the race (midnight, local time), 18 of the 73 men who started did not finish. Nijhuis, however, persevered through the rough conditions and finished with a time of 2:18.10.
 
Bouchikhi competed in the men's 10,000 meters final on Sunday, the final day of the Championships. Representing his native Belgium, Bouchikhi took 14^th in the race with a time of 28:15.4.
 
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.
 
He is currently a full-time medical student at Århus University in Århus, Denmark.
 
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).