The 20-year-old El Hafnaoui clocked an impressive time of 7 minutes and 37 seconds, outpacing Australian Sam Short (7:37.76) and American Olympic and world champion Bobby Finke (7:38.67).
The race witnessed fierce competition between El Hafnaoui, Short, and Germany’s Lucas Martens before the Tunisian surged ahead to claim the top spot.
Earlier, El Hafnaoui had secured the silver medal in the 400m freestyle race, finishing just 2% of a second behind Short. Notably, he made headlines at the Tokyo Olympics when he clinched gold in the same event at the age of 18.
Speaking about his victory, El Hafnaoui said, “I held onto my last race, the 400m, in my mind and tried to be faster in the 800m to win the gold.”