Oussama Mellouli

People Living

أسامة الملولي

Tunisian swimmer, born in La Marsa in 1984. He won the 1500 m freestyle at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, then the 10 km marathon gold and the 1500 m freestyle bronze at London 2012 — the first swimmer to medal in both open water and the pool at a single Olympics — and competed at six Olympic Games between 2000 and 2020.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
swimmer
Region
Maghreb
Identifiers
Wikidata

Life in time

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Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

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    Summary

    Oussama Mellouli is a Tunisian swimmer, born in La Marsa on 16 February 1984. 1 2 Known as the "Shark of the Mediterranean", he won Olympic gold in the 1500 m freestyle at Beijing 2008 and in the 10 km marathon swim at London 2012, and competed at six Olympic Games between 2000 and 2020. 1 3

    Early life

    Mellouli left Tunisia at the age of fifteen to study and train in France, graduating from a lycée in Marseille. He enrolled at the University of Southern California in 2003, swam for the USC Trojans under coach Dave Salo, and graduated in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in computer science. 1

    Career

    Mellouli made his Olympic debut at Sydney 2000 as a sixteen-year-old. 1 At Beijing 2008 he won the 1500 m freestyle, and at London 2012 he won the 10 km open-water marathon and took bronze in the 1500 m freestyle, becoming the first swimmer to win medals in both open water and the pool at a single Olympic Games. 1 He was world champion in the 1500 m freestyle at Rome 2009, winning in 14:37.28, then the second-fastest performance in history, and in the 5 km open water at Barcelona 2013; he also won short-course world titles at Indianapolis 2004 and Dubai 2010 and fifteen gold medals at the 2011 Pan Arab Games in Doha. 1

    Doping ban

    Mellouli tested positive for Adderall in an in-competition test in December 2006. In September 2007 the Court of Arbitration for Sport imposed an eighteen-month ban, backdated to 30 November 2006, and his results at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne — where he had won the 800 m freestyle — were annulled. 1 He returned to win the world and Olympic titles described above.

    Sources

    • The source entities cited above, registered under data/source/.

    Sources

    1. Oussama Mellouli — English Wikipedia
    2. Oussama Mellouli — Wikidata
    3. Oussama Mellouli — Arabic Wikipedia
    • Oussama Mellouli — French Wikipedia
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Oussama Mellouli”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/oussama-mellouli/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-01.

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