Moroccan runner Anass Essayi determined to reach pinnacle of athletics 'even if I don't love it'

Does one need to love what they do in order to succeed in it? That’s a question Moroccan runner Anass Essayi has been grappling with as he recently made a confession in a candid message he posted to his Instagram.

One of his nation’s most talented and promising middle-distance runners, Essayi is a two-time Olympian who is ranked in the world’s top 15 in 1,500m and who placed seventh in the 3,000m short track at the World Indoor Championships a few months ago.

A bronze medallist in 1,500m at the Youth Olympics in 2018, Essayi has been busy training in the Atlas Mountains in Ifrane, gearing up for September’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.

Ifrane, situated nearly 1,700m above sea level, is a hotbed of elite runners looking for some altitude training and it is where Morocco’s athletics national team is based.

In Ifrane, Essayi is surrounded by excellence, and trains in an environment bursting with talented runners. And while the 24-year-old Moroccan may share their dedication and discipline, he admits he does not share their passion for running.

“This is not easy to say, but I need to let it out. Track has never been fun for me. Not once. I’ve never trained with joy in my heart,” Essayi wrote in a post he shared on social media last month.

“I kept hoping that would change, but it hasn’t. Most days, I felt drained, numb, even depressed. And yet – here I am. Still competing. Still running. Still showing up.

“People tell me you need to love the sport to succeed in it. Maybe they’re right. But maybe, just maybe … some of us are just made for it. That’s what keeps me going. Not passion, but purpose.

“I’m sharing this to say: It’s OK to feel stuck. It’s OK to not enjoy what you’re good at. But don’t stop trying. Don’t stop looking for the joy. This isn’t the end of my story – it’s just a turning point. And I’m working on falling in love with this journey, one step at a time.”

Essayi is not the first professional athlete to make such a confession.

Tennis hall-of-famer Andre Agassi famously revealed his disdain for his sport in the very first page of his autobiography Open.

“I play tennis for a living though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, always have,” wrote the American legend.

Pushed into tennis by an overzealous father, Agassi resented the sport and the pressure that came with it. He still ended up winning eight Grand Slams and an Olympic gold medal, and was ranked No 1 in the world for a total of 101 weeks.

It wasn’t until late in his career that the American began to change his perspective towards the sport.

“Just because I didn’t choose my life, doesn’t mean I can’t take ownership of it. Just because I didn’t choose my life, doesn’t mean I can’t choose to choose it,” Agassi recently said on Andy Roddick’s podcast Served.

Essayi is trying very hard to choose the life that was chosen for him a decade ago.

At 14, in his hometown of Ain El Aouda just outside Rabat, Essayi was spotted running a race by coaches at a local club. They kept going to his house asking him to join their track team and his father pushed him to do it.

“I always skipped training but with time, my dad made me go, so I had to go every day to train with them,” he told The National.

In his second year of training, Essayi placed third in the national championship and was asked to join the Moroccan national team in Ifrane.

He didn’t want to leave home but, urged by his father, he moved to the mountains to train and attend high school.

“It was very hard for me the first week and I decided to go back to my home, but my coach kept saying, ‘Anass, you'll be good, you'll be good’,” Essayi recalls.

“It was honestly very hard. The weather was very cold and I'm not used to being away from home.

“But with time you get used to it and you have to make some kind of decisions for your future.”

He stuck around and upon graduation, he enrolled in Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, where he studied for a year and a half before he moved to the United States to study at and run for the University of South Carolina.

That was another big transition for Essayi, who was keen to pursue a degree that would secure his future beyond running but knew it would be challenging given he didn’t speak English that well and didn’t know anyone there.

He also realised the style of training at the university was different to what he was accustomed to – “they only race for the last lap, which I didn't like much,” he said – so he convinced the coaches he would not be training with the school team and would instead continue training with his Moroccan coach from back home.

Mind you, his coach couldn’t travel to the United States, so Essayi ended up training alone for large stretches of time.

He graduated from university with a degree in retail management last year and returned to Morocco to rejoin the national team in Ifrane, where he’s been based ever since.

Last month, Essayi clocked personal best times in 1,500m at a meet in Rome (3:30.74) and in the mile at a meet in Oslo (3:49.16).

Nine days later he decided to tell the world he didn’t like running.

For Essayi, the joy of winning a race is fleeting, while the agony of defeat lingers for what feels like an eternity.

“It's not something that I enjoy. That's the answer,” Essayi explains. “Like, ‘Oh, I have a run in 20 minutes, I'm very excited for that’ – no, I don't have these feelings, you know?

“And even when we win a championship or something, the happiness is five minutes. But when you don't qualify for the next round or when you don't finish with the first five or six [runners], you get depressed or you get sad for a whole month.

“For example, the [Paris] Olympics, even though I was proud, I finished 13th overall, it's a good thing you have to be proud of. But still, the whole month, the whole summer, I wasn't that happy. That's something I don't like about running.

“When you win, it's a five-minute happiness after the race. But when you don't win, it's very hard to accept the result. You say, ‘Oh, the training, where has it gone?’”

Does he feel excited ahead of competitions?

“No, that's the big problem. I'm not excited at all. But still, I do great,” he responds with a smile.

Essayi’s coach Abdelaziz Bouzam believes his charge can do much better if he loved the sport.

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Soufiane El Bakkali, who shares a training base with Essayi, has also been urging him to embrace running.

“I am one of the people who tell you that you should love this sport because you have the ability to reach your dream and go far. Just focus on your dream. Good luck, champion” commented El Bakkali on Essayi’s Instagram post.

El Bakkali is a source of inspiration for Essayi.

The 29-year-old Moroccan became the first non-Kenyan in 40 years to win the 3,000m steeplechase at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. He defended his Olympic crown in Paris last year.

“Just being with him and training with him is something that encourages us all,” said Essayi.

“It's very good to see him train and how modest he is. And the training, just when you see him, you say, ‘I could get at some point to where they all arrived’.

“It's very motivating to see athletes train with you and live with you and eat the same thing.”

Essayi was barely 20 years old when he competed in his first Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, which he describes as a bad experience.

“It's just I was very young and I didn't know anything,” he reflects.

“But like the second one [in Paris], I learnt from the first one and I made it to the second round, which I'm very proud of. And I missed the final by one spot, which is crazy.”

Essayi acknowledges he has conflicting feelings about his sport and believes he’ll know for sure how he feels about running if he finds himself missing it post-retirement.

For now, he has vowed to keep trying to fall in love with running and he’s hoping to reach the 1,500m final at Worlds in September.

After Worlds, he would like to add the 5,000m to his programme with the goal of competing in both distances at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Beyond LA 2028, Essayi sees himself potentially switching to road racing, moving up to half marathons and marathons.

In an attempt to ignite his passion for the sport, he is on the hunt for a psychologist or mental health coach in Morocco, and is considering changing his training environment or finding a new training group to run with.

For him, quitting is not an option and it’s not because of fear of not being good at anything else.

“When I think about it, I'm good at running, why should I stop?” he says.

“I'm not scared [of quitting]. I studied in America, so if I decided to stop running, I could easily find a job, especially here in Morocco or in another country.

“I think God gave me a lot of things that I could be great at, not only running. But right now, I’m good at running. I'm one of the top athletes in Morocco. So why stop? And I have the support system, my coach, my family.

“Even if I don't like it, I still have goals. I still want to achieve medals. I still want to do great things.

“I will never be down or just stop like that because I don't like it. I'm trying to be in love with it.”

There is a quote attributed to the late Muhammad Ali, where he says: “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’.”

If the boxing legend loathed training, there might be hope for Essayi just yet.