Nawal El Moutawakel

Nawal El Moutawakel (born 15 April 1962 in Casablanca) is a Moroccan former hurdler who won the inaugural women's 400 metres hurdles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, becoming the first Moroccan, Arab, African, and Muslim woman to win an Olympic gold medal; she became Morocco's Minister of Youth and Sports in 2007 and has been an International Olympic Committee member since 1998 and one of its vice-presidents ^{1 2}.

El Moutawakel was born in Casablanca, took up running as a child, and moved to the United States to study and train at Iowa State University, where she was a student when her Los Angeles victory surprised the sporting world; King Hassan II telephoned his congratulations and ordered that every girl born in Morocco that day be named Nawal ^{1 2}. Both articles describe her generically as a Muslim woman — the first Arab, Muslim and African woman to achieve her feat — which attests no legal school, so her faith is recorded as unknown ^{1 2 3}.

After retiring from competition she moved into world sports administration: an IOC member since 1998, she chaired the evaluation commission for the 2016 Olympics, was elected an IOC vice-president in 2016 and re-elected in 2024, served as Morocco's Minister of Youth and Sports from 2007, and worked to spread women's sport in Morocco and across the Arab and African worlds; in August 2024 the International Sports Press Association voted her the fourth-best female athlete of the past hundred years ^{1 2}.

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