The Dutchwoman sealed a “Zatopek second” with astonishing marathon win that accomplished a medal hat-trick
When the customary medallists’ press convention for the ladies’s 10,000m came about in Paris, one of many high three was lacking.
Sifan Hassan, who had received bronze within the race so as to add to the one of many similar color she had captured within the 5000m, could possibly be excused. She nonetheless had work to do.
Because the press convention wound down, the ten,000m champion Beatrice Chebet and silver medallist Nadia Battocletti had been requested how they could really feel in the event that they nonetheless had a marathon to run, with solely in the future to recuperate. Their barely nervous, barely bewildered laughter on the very thought advised its personal story.
However that was the project Hassan had given herself. She had contested the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m on the Tokyo Video games – an itinerary that had raised greater than the odd eyebrow – however swapping within the marathon this time appeared to most like an act of sheer folly. For the primary half of her 26.2-mile journey on the ultimate day of the athletics competitors, the Dutchwoman concurred.
Sifan Hassan (Getty)
“Each second I used to be regretting that I had run the 5000m and 10,000m,” she mentioned. “I used to be telling myself: ‘If I hadn’t finished that, I might really feel nice at this time’. From the start to the tip, it was so onerous. Each step of the best way I used to be considering: ‘Why did I try this? What’s unsuitable with me?’.”
But, from across the 20km mark, the tide started to show and the truth that Hassan completed first in a closing dash to the road with Ethiopian world record-holder Tigist Assefa was concurrently jaw-dropping but by no means shocking.
Deploying the velocity that made her a world 1500m champion in 2019, in addition to utilizing some good quaint brute drive as she and Assefa clashed elbows when the Ethiopian appeared to try to dam her rival, Hassan produced a spectacularly becoming finale for these Video games.
Sifan Hassan and Tigist Assefa (Getty)
The final athlete to win medals within the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon in a single Video games was Emil Zatopek in 1952 and, after breaking the Olympic report with 2:22:55 over essentially the most difficult of programs to win by simply three seconds, the 31-year-old had carved out her personal slice of historical past.
“After I completed, the entire second was a launch,” mentioned Hassan, who had coated a complete racing distance of 62km throughout Paris 2024. “It’s unbelievable. I’ve by no means skilled something like that. Even the opposite marathons I’ve run weren’t near this.
“After I completed, I couldn’t cease celebrating. I used to be feeling dizzy. I needed to lie down. Then I assumed, ‘I’m the Olympic champion. How is that this potential?’. I used to be frightened of this race. On the finish I assumed, ‘That is only a 100m dash. Come on, Sifan. Yet another. Simply really feel it, like somebody who sprints 200m’.”
» This text first appeared within the September challenge of AW journal. Subscribe to AW journal right here, take a look at our new podcast right here or signal as much as our digital archive of again points from 1945 to the current day right here
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