Sifan Hassan’s Olympics for the ages

Sifan Hassan seems so frail that she often seems to flirt with a tumble while racing. Thin as a reed, she tips the scales at barely 50kg, and the Dutchwoman has a history of falls. She momentarily raised that prospect on Saturday in the finishing stages of the Paris Olympics women’s marathon.

She had stuck to a bunch of around 10 lead runners, and with the final kilometre of the tough route through Paris ahead, the gold medal battle had come down to two athletes of Ethiopian origin. Tigst Assefa, the world record holder fighting for the Ethiopian flag, was going to make it as difficult as she could for a rival who sought asylum in The Netherlands as a teenager.

Sifan tried to dart past to the right of Tigst, who quickly blocked the path. As the Dutch runner tried to move past on the left at the last sharp turn before the finish line came into her sight, Tigst quickly came across. For a second, it appeared Sifan would be slammed into the barriers heaving with fans.

But Sifan proved she is all steel, slipping through to go on and win the race in an Olympic record time of two hours, 22 minutes, 55 seconds. She had beaten Tigst to the gold by three seconds. It ended a barely believable 10 days of her Olympics engagement – she had run four races, including two on the track – with the ultimate high.

The Dutchwoman yelled in delight at the finish as the Paris fans, who lined up on both sides of the route in large number till the last runner finished, applauded.

The marathon gold, following Sifan’s bronze in both the 5,000m and 10,000m, made her the first woman, and only the second athlete to medal in all three distance events in a single Olympics. She emulated Czech distance legend Emil Zatopek, who won all three distance events in the 1952 Helsinki Games.

Modern athletics scheduling at major meets is such that doubling up in middle- or long-distance events is next to impossible. It takes a generational talent to attempt it, but doggedness to actually go ahead and execute successfully. Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen did the 1,500m-5,000m double, shaking off the fourth place in the shorter event by winning the 5,000m heats 15 hours later and then the final.

Sifan’s effort is on a different plane. In the Tokyo Olympics, she pulled off an even crazier schedule – eight days, five races, a golden double in the 5,000-10,000 and bronze in the 1,500m. That had made her only the second woman to complete a distance double in the Olympics – Tirunesh Dibaba was the first, at 2008 Beijing, while Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet achieved the feat in Paris.

“I have no words. Every moment in the race I was regretting that I ran the 5,000m and 10,000m. I was telling myself if I hadn’t done that, I would feel great today,” Sifan said. “The moment I started to feel good was at 20km. I felt so good. Then I knew I wanted gold.”

A steep ascent followed by a tricky descent around the 27km mark made it really tough for the runners. Ethiopia’s men’s marathon winner, Tamirat Tola, chose to accelerate up the 500m incline, while the women chose a steady pace.

“I’ve never pushed myself through to the finish line as I did today,” Sifan, who still had the legs in the end to bring her track finishing prowess in, said.

So, why does Sifan maintain such a punishing schedule? At Tokyo 2021 she said: “For me, it is crucial to follow my heart. Doing that is far more important than gold medals. That keeps me motivated and it keeps me enjoying this beautiful sport.”

Add the falls to the rising. In Tokyo, it came in the 1,500m heats, but she got up and won. At the 2023 Budapest World Championships, Sifan, coming into the home stretch in the lead, was distracted after her elbow touched Gudaf Tsegey, who was on her shoulder, lost balance and went down. She walked across the line 11th. After the Dutch sprinter-hurdler Femke Bol too crashed in the relay, a rueful Sifan said: “Maybe it’s national fall down day.”

Shifan, who won the 2023 London Marathon on her debut at the distance and then clocked the second-best time ever to win the Chicago Marathon in October in 2:13.44, was thrilled to bits.

“I was so happy in the London Marathon, but today I’m more happy, I can’t believe I’m Olympic marathon champion! 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.”

She made a quiet debut at the 2016 Rio Games, but rose to prominence at the 2019 Doha worlds where she won the 1,500m and 10,000m. A trainee at the Albert Salazar’s Oregon centre, his suspension due to doping allegations followed. Sifan, who denied any doping, continues to train in the U.S.

On Saturday, Sifan’s celebrations continued for long. With the Dutch flag draped around her shoulders, she was still with the Dutch fans when Nepal’s Shantoshi Shrestha came in as the second last finisher, more than 32 minutes after her. The winner went across to hug and share a word with Shantoshi.

The 1924 Paris Olympics saw ‘Flying Finn’ Paavo Nurmi win an unprecedented five gold – 1,500m, 5,000m, individual cross-country, team cross-country and 3000m team. A century on, Sifan can lay claim to carrying that legacy – falling, rising, logging 62-plus kms, and waving the winner’s medal in the end.