PARIS — Sifan Hassan ended her mammoth week with a gold in the women’s marathon on Sunday, completing her remarkable treble bid to medal in the 5,000-metres, 10,000-metres and marathon.
No athlete has ever attempted to run all three distances in the Olympic in 40 years. Only one other athlete, the great Czech runner Emil Zátopek, has ever medalled in all three events when he swept all three golds in Helsinki in 1952.
Hassan broke the Olympic record in the marathon with a timing of 2:22:55. Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa took silver and Kenya’s Hellen Obiri won bronze.
“I have no words. Every moment in the race I was regretting that I ran the 5000m and 10,000m. I was telling myself if I hadn’t done that, I would feel great today,” Hassan said after the race.
“From the beginning to the end, it was so hard. Every step of the way. I was thinking, ‘Why did I do that? What is wrong with me?’ If I hadn’t done it, I would feel so comfortable here.
“The moment I started to feel good at 20 kilometres, I felt so good. Then I knew I wanted gold. But everybody else was fresh and all I was thinking was, ‘When are they going to break? They’re going to go hard, they’re going to go hard’.”
Hassan entered the race having already run 50 laps of the Stade de France track this week, earning bronze medals in the women’s 5,000 and 10,000-metres — the latter coming just 36 hours before the 26-mile race.
The 31-year-old had spoken all week of her fear of the Olympics’ longest race, even thinking about the race while she competed on the track. “I’m freaking scared for the marathon,” she said on Monday. She quoted Muhammad Ali in a post to Instagram on Saturday, saying: “If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”
She had little to fear, though, and produced a gutsy performance that saw her dig deep to stay with the leading pack on the many steep hills of the Paris course.
Hassan stepped it up a gear once the course flattened and ended with an all-out sprint alongside Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa and Kenya’s Hellen Obiri. First, Obiri fell away, unable to keep up, then Hassan bumped shoulders with Assefa as the Dutch athlete took a racing line through the winding finish to become the Olympic champion.
“I feel like I am dreaming. I only see people on the TV who are Olympic champions,” Hassan said. “The marathon is something else, you know. When you do 42 kilometres in more than two hours and 20 minutes, then every single step you feel so hard and so painful.
“When I finished, the whole moment was a release. It is unbelievable. I have never experienced anything like that. Even the other marathons I have run were not close to this.
“When I finished, I couldn’t stop celebrating. I was feeling dizzy. I wanted to lie down. Then I thought, ‘I am the Olympic champion. How is this possible?'”
It means she has now won Olympic medals ranging from the 1,500 metres to the marathon in a stunning show of both track speed and endurance. At Tokyo 2020, Hassan completed another treble, winning bronze in the 1,500-metres, as well as the 5,000 and 10,000- metres.
The Paris course was the same brutal route used for Saturday’s men’s race. It began outside Paris’ city hall, Hotel de Ville, and passed along sights such as Palais Garnier opera house, Place Vendome, the Louvre museum, the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Versailles.
It ended with Hassan bolting down the scenic home straight in the shadow of the Esplanade des Invalides.
“I am Olympic champion,” Hassan said. “What can I say? In the marathon.”
Even the other athletes shared their disbelief.
“She is amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. She’s just awesome,” Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi said. “Who can do that? Who can come from track and win the marathon?
“I feel like I just want to be her.”
