Olympic Games in Paris: British marathon runner announces she finished the race with a broken leg
British runner Rose Harvey finished 78th out of 91 participants and 80 finishers in the women’s marathon at the Olympic Games in Paris.
For some, this may have been a disappointing result, but in Harvey’s case, it was one of the most remarkable performances of the Olympics.
After the race, it was revealed that Harvey had crossed the finish line with a stress fracture in her femur, the BBC reported. She had started the day with a hip injury, and the toughest course ever planned for a major marathon was not exactly conducive to her.
Given the many climbs and descents in Paris, it’s a miracle Harvey even finished, let alone did it in under three hours, with a time of 2:51:03. From the BBC:
“It was really hard. It was a really, really hard day. After about two miles I knew my hip was going to hurt really, really badly. The hills didn’t help at all, the downhills were just torture and it just kept getting worse. Halfway through I knew it was going to be incredibly painful.
“To be honest, I’m not sure how I managed it today, as I can’t put any weight on my leg at all.”
Harvey reportedly had treatment for her hip before the Olympics, but was told that running the marathon would make it worse. Since there were no replacement runners from Great Britain to take her place in the race, she decided to try anyway.
She attributed her continued pursuit to her friends, her family and her own fear:
“Having so many friends and family out there means so much to me, having that support. My fiancé Charlie was there and seeing him at so many points just kept me going. Every mile I was just thinking, ‘Good, just run to Charlie, run until the next time I can see him, until the next time I can see my friends and family.’ The crowds were incredible and I think the other big thing is I knew deep down if I stopped I would always ask myself, ‘What if I could have just run one more mile? I couldn’t have lived with that.’
“Any other race I would have stopped because I couldn’t run like I normally do… and the pain was really bad, but I just had to get to the finish line, I had to run the Olympic marathon.”
Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan won the gold medal in the marathon with an Olympic record time of 2:22:55. Harvey now walks around on crutches, which could be a problem considering her wedding is in three weeks:
“My big challenge is to hopefully not need crutches at the wedding, but we’ll see. If things continue like this, Charlie might end up walking down the aisle.”
Even a healthy Harvey would have been an unusual sight in the marathon field, as the 31-year-old only began competing in elite competitions four years ago. Before that, she worked as a corporate lawyer and ran as a hobby.
After her release in 2020, Harvey began training for a triathlon and just kept going, eventually setting a personal best at the Chicago Marathon that qualified her for Paris.
