Sifan Hassan completed a remarkable week with Olympic gold in the women’s marathon, having already won a pair of bronzes in the two long-distance track events.
Barely 36 hours after claiming third spot in the 10,000 metres final, Hassan was back in action and won the marathon in an Olympic record time of two hours 22 minutes and 55 seconds.
The Ethiopia-born Dutch runner, who also clinched bronze in the 5,000m on Tuesday, became Europe’s first winner of this event since Romania’s Constantina Dita-Tomescu in 2008.
Hassan set the Olympic record to win the women’s marathon
Hassan, already a double Olympic champion with Tokyo 2020 gold in the 5,000m and 10,000m, defeated Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa by three seconds in a sprint finish while Kenya’s Hellen Obiri took bronze.
“I feel like I am dreaming,” Hassan said. “At the end I thought, ‘This is just a 100m sprint. Come on, Sifan. One more. Just feel it, like someone who sprints 200m’.”
How Hassan claimed historic marathon gold
Hassan used the same tactic in the hilly, 26.2-mile course as she does on the track, as she lingered behind the leaders for the bulk of the race before summoning up the energy for a late-race kick that will go down as one of the best the sport has seen.
This one, amazingly, had more the look of a crowded race on the oval down the stretch. As Hassan gathered to make her last pass, Assefa tried to block her path and Hassan moved to the inside around a bend.
Assefa tried to squeeze her against the barrier separating the course from the cheering fans. The runners traded elbows, then Hassan took off past Assefa and sprinted in for the win. By simply completing the marathon, she ran more than 62 kilometres in races within the week and now has six Olympic medals.
Hassan entered the Games looking to match Emil Zatopek’s performance from 1952, when the Czech runner swept the 5,000, 10,000 and the marathon at the Helsinki Game, but leaves with a gold medal and two bronzes.
Hassan enjoyed an Olympics to remember
Great Britain’s Clara Evans finished 46th, a little over 10 minutes off Hassan’s winning time but still a season’s best, while compatriots Rose Harvey was 78th and Calli Hauger-Thackery did not finish.
What happened in the men’s marathon?
A day earlier, Great Britain’s Emile Cairess finished strongly to claim an impressive fourth-place finish in a men’s marathon won by Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola in an Olympic record.
Tola took the title in a time of two hours six minutes and 26 seconds, winning his country’s first gold of the Games. Belgian Bashir Abdi claimed silver in 2:06.47, with the bronze going to Kenyan Benson Kipruto in 2:07.00.
Cairess – who qualified for the Paris Olympics after finishing third in the London Marathon in April – was fourth in 2:07.29, while Eliud Kipchoge was targeting an unprecedented third straight Olympic title but was unable to finish the race.
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