There are victories. Olympic victories. And Olympic victories that write the history of sport. Sifan Hassan’s victory in the marathon at the Paris Olympics falls without hesitation into the third category. Not only for the gold medal won in the sprint against Ethiopian Tigist Assefa after a very demanding 42.195 km. Not just for the Olympic record either. But for the incredible triptych in which this victory is part.
Because on Friday evening, the Dutchwoman was on the track at the Stade de France, lining up for the 10,000 m. Bronze medal. The same metal as for the 5,000 m, where she competed in the heats on Friday, August 2 and the final on Monday, August 5. The athlete rounded off her crazy Games with this gold medal. Following in the footsteps of the athletics legend, the Czech Emil Zatopek, who won gold in these three distances at the 1952 Olympics. Monumental. Surreal.
The athlete, who arrived in the Netherlands from Ethiopia at the age of 15, loves, and above all has the ability to take on improbable challenges. At the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Sifan Hassan won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 m, “settling” for bronze in the 1,500 m. “It’s curiosity that drives me to do all these races,” she explains. “When I’m at home, I always want to do four or five events. And once in the stadium, I say to myself: Damn, why am I doing this? Why did I decide to do this? I shouldn’t have. »
But after her three podiums in Japan, Sifan Hassan struggles to find the taste for effort in training again. An idea germinates in her: why not leave the stadiums to try her luck on the road, and switch to a completely different universe?
“Who can come from athletics and win the marathon?”
Everyone quickly understood that the Dutchwoman was not here to joke about the distance. In April 2023, she won the London Marathon for her first time. In October, after the World Championships where she fell in the final of the 10,000m, she achieved the second best performance in history in Chicago. And became, de facto, a very big client in view of the Games.
“It’s very difficult to come from shorter distances to the marathon, so I admire her a lot,” said her Ethiopian runner-up Tigist Assefa, whose delegation has filed an appeal for a contact between the two women at the end of the race. “She’s incredible. She’s just great,” enthusiastically greeted the fourth of the day, Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi. “Who can do that? Who can come from athletics and win the marathon? I just want to be her.”
Others will be tempted to express more reservations about the feat given Sifan Hassan’s past associations, notably with the American Alberto Salazar, who was suspended for four years in 2019 for incitement to doping.
“Every moment of the race I regretted running the 5,000 and the 10,000.”
On Sunday morning, from Paris to Paris via Versailles, Sifan Hassan nevertheless, by her own admission, suffered during the race, even being left behind for a moment on the terrible climb of the Pavement des Gardes. “At every moment of the race, I regretted having run the 5,000 m and the 10,000 m,” she explained. “I told myself that if I hadn’t done that, I would feel good today.”
Along the Seine, the leading group gradually lost its various athletes. Leaving the Dutchwoman in a final duel with Tigist Assefa. “At the end, I said to myself: It’s just a 100m sprint. Come on, Sifan. One more. Feel like someone sprinting 200m. » And when it is an athlete who has already lined up in the 800m who reasons in this way, the opponent suffers. And the Dutchwoman ends up writing history in front of the Invalides.
