Paris 2024: Sifan Hassan wins the women’s marathon, achieving one of the greatest Olympic achievements of all time
PARIS – In less than a week, Sifan Hassan achieved one of the most remarkable triple victories in Olympic history.
The superhuman Dutch long-distance runner was the first woman to win a medal in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and marathon at the same Olympic Games.
The leading group in the women’s marathon was down to two on Sunday morning when Hassan made her typically devastating final sprint. She shrugged off an elbow from Tigst Assefa as the Ethiopian tried to block her attack, overtook Assefa with about 250 meters to go and then sprinted ahead of her to the finish line to win gold in an Olympic record 2:22:55.
After she achieved victory, she felt dizzy and had to lie down, Hassan said.
As she lay flat on her back, she thought to herself, “I’m an Olympic champion. How is that possible?”
Hassan’s dramatic victory will be remembered as one of the greatest performances in long-distance running of all time because of what came before it. She had already run 50 laps of the purple track at the Stade de France this week, taking bronze in the women’s 5,000m on Monday night and the women’s 10,000m on Friday night.
Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Ethiopian-born Hassan admitted she was “genuinely scared of the marathon.” She had accomplished the near-impossible before, winning medals in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 meters in Tokyo. But the prospect of running 26.2 miles against women fresh off the form intimidated even Hassan.
These feelings kept coming back to Hassan, even as she ran along a track that looped from downtown Paris to Versailles, recreating key moments of the French Revolution.
“When I started running this morning, I regretted every single moment of running the 5,000 and 10,000,” she said. “From start to finish, every step was so hard. I thought: What have I done? What is wrong with me?”
And yet it was Hassan who ultimately outsprinted Assefa to win a remarkable gold medal that she considers a step above her previous Olympic victories in Tokyo.
“I challenged myself and I’m so damn grateful,” she said.
