Mention Fermin Cacho here and, of course, everyone knows about him. While Hicham El Guerrouj may be most people's favourite to take 1,500 metres gold, nobody can argue that Cacho has one of the best championship records of the decade.

Now 30, Cacho has been Spain's legend of the track after he electrified the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona by defying all the odds to win the 1,500 metres gold medal. And he's only been out of the medals on one occasion (the World Championships of 1995) ever since.

Yesterday, at a press conference for today's 1,500 metres final the one English question that managed to break through the hoard of Spanish noise was why, after so long, he still survives at the highest level?

"It's the Olympics and World Championships, they are the races that matter," he says. "It doesn't make any difference it it's fast or slow, either way, it's always going to be tactical. You have to be ready for anything. That's the way I like it." He also proved he can run as fast as the best of then when he clocked three minutes 28.95 seconds - a European record - in 1997, only the third European after Britain's Seb Coe and Steve Cram to run under 3:30.