PARIS — Sifan Hassan says she must be addicted to the pain.
How else can you explain hatching a “crazy” dream to race the Olympic 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon within a week — and then medalling in all of them?
It was a warm Sunday in Paris — less than 38 hours after she’d won bronze in the 10,000m, six days after running to bronze in the 5,000m — when Hassan’s screaming legs found another gear in the final metres of her favoured race. She outkicked marathon world record holder Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia to break the tape in an Olympic-record time of two hours, 22 minutes, 55 seconds.
“I was really tired. I thought no way could I push. I thought I’m going to stop,” the Dutch athlete told media after the race. She’d been disappointed days earlier in her 10,000m run, kicking herself for not pushing harder, and that sadness fuelled her final metres. “I told myself: I have to give everything. I don’t care if I’m number five or number eight. I have to give everything so I don’t have a regret.”
Assefa crossed the line three seconds back in two hours, 22 minutes, 58 seconds, while two-time Boston Marathon champion Helen Obiri of Kenya stopped the clock in two hours, 23 minutes, 10 seconds on a challenging and hilly course.
“Because of the heat I struggled a lot so I’m happy to finish second in the end. I was expecting the gold but in the end I am happy to have silver,” Assefa said after the race, when temperatures had climbed above 20C.
Hassan’s marathon victory makes her a three-time Olympic champion. At her Olympic debut in Tokyo three years ago she won the 5,000m and 10,000m in addition to taking bronze in the 1,500m. She’d initially planned to also contest the 1,500m in Paris as part of an unprecedented Olympic quadruple, but ultimately dropped the shorter event from her schedule.
“She’s the type of athlete that wants to have multiple goals at once,” says Hassan’s coach, Tim Rowberry.
Hassan made her marathon debut in 2023, winning the London Marathon and came into these Games having run the second-ever fastest time over 42.2km, which she did 10 months ago to win the Chicago Marathon. Despite her packed schedule, the marathon was Hassan’s primary focus in Paris and Rowberry did everything he could to support her recovery between events to get her on the start line healthy. “You know, she’s trying to go through the emotions (of winning a medal on the track). And I’m thinking: Can you go through these emotions in the ice bath?”
But Hassan had no more races to rush to after her marathon victory and stayed at the finish until after the last runner — Kinzang Lhamo of Bhutan — crossed the line to a standing ovation.
Lhamo was one of six athletes competing in the race in a universality place, which is given to athletes from under-represented National Olympic Committees. According to her Olympic profile, the 26-year-old athlete started running four years ago when she was recruited as a soldier and she has twice won the Bhutan International Marathon.
Lhamo ran most of the race on her own, well back from the leaders, but got more screen time than most competitors as all cameras turned to her once the other athletes had crossed the finish. Dozens of spectators walked and jogged alongside Lhamo yelling encouragement as she struggled along the final kilometres of the race. Lhamo finished in just under four hours, but from her reception you would be forgiven for thinking she had set the Olympic course record. She was later taken to the medical tent.
Malindi Elmore of Kelowna, Canada’s lone entrant in the race, finished 35th in two hours, 31 minutes and eight seconds, well off her ninth place finish three years ago in Tokyo. Elmore, at 44, was the second oldest competitor in the field after 47-year-old Sinead Diver of Australia, who dropped out shortly after the first kilometre.
“It was really hard. It was really, really, really hard the whole time. The downs were hard, the ups were hard, the flats didn’t feel good. The last couple (kilometres), my legs kept buckling and I wasn’t sure if it was my legs or just the asphalt that’s rough and bumpy,” she said. “Obviously I wanted a better performance today. I felt really fit and prepared … But I did the best I could and, up one of the hills I thought, yeah, you know what? Some people are built to run up hills fast and I’m not.”
This is the first time the women’s marathon has been held on the final day of the Games. Typically it is the men’s marathon that closes out the 16-day event.