RunBlogRun comments: Sifan Hassan now has six Olympic medals, three from 2021 in Tokyo (1500m bronze, gold at 10,000m and 5,000m), and three from 2024 (bronze at 10,000m and 5,000m, and gold in the Marathon). Sifan Hassan ran 62k races in Paris and is the only woman ever to win Olympic medals in the 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathons in the same Olympics.
Remember, only one man has ever done it, Emil Zatopek, back in 1952, with golds in 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon.
If you want more on Sifan Hassan, please check out our interview with Sifan Hassan: https://www.runblogrun.com/2024/09/sifan-hassan-the-runblogrun-interview-speaks-on-her-running-origins-her-experiences-and-her-recent-olympic-medals.html?swcfpc=1
WITH MARATHON WIN, HASSAN NABS HISTORIC THIRD PARIS 2024 MEDAL
By Rich Sands, @sands
(c) 2024 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
NOTE: This story was written remotely with assistance from local reporting in Paris –Ed.
(11-Aug): The athletics program at the 2024 Olympics concluded spectacularly on Sunday. Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands won the women’s marathon in a sprint finish to take her third medal at the Paris Games. World record holder Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia crossed the line three seconds behind, and Kenya’s Hellen Obiri completed the podium. Hassan became the only woman in history to win medals in the 5000m (bronze), 10,000m (bronze), and marathon (gold) in the same Olympic Games.
As with the men’s race on Saturday, the women were cautious in the early going, acutely aware that several brutal hills awaited them mid-race and a temperature steadily rising from 66F/19C at the start. There was no cloud cover, and the course had little shade.
The field of 91 athletes set off from Hôtel de Ville (the Paris city hall), but the first casualty would come quickly. U.S. Olympic Trials champion Fiona O’Keeffe, running awkwardly from the start, dropped out before the 5-K mark. She would be among 11 athletes who did not finish the race.
A crowded lead pack went through 5-K in 17:24 and then picked up the pace slightly to hit 10-K in 34:32. By 15-K (51:12) there were 14 women up front, including defending Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, Assefa (who set the world record of 2:11:23 at the 2023 Berlin Marathon), Obiri (a two-time Olympic silver medalist in the 5000 meters and a world champion in indoor and outdoor track and cross country) and France’s Melody Julien, who remained at or near the lead through most…
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