The Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion stunned everyone with comeback for the ages at the London Marathon

For the tens of thousands of runners who lined up at the 2023 TCS London Marathon, a sense of apprehension and trepidation would’ve likely set in, with 26.2 long and arduous miles ahead and the realisation that the final 10km would be as much a mental as a physical challenge.

Elite athletes, who have won global medals and received international acclaim for their achievements, arguably get those feelings but they know their ceiling is much higher. A sense of admission that they are not ready for the battle could be perceived as a sign of weakness. Especially when their competitors are the best of the best.

The elite women’s field at this past Sunday’s London Marathon contained the greatest line-up for a female marathon in history. It included world record-holder Brigid Kosgei, Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir and world record-holder over 10km plus 2022 London Marathon champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw, to name just a few.

At the pre-event press conference, the trio were relatively poker-faced. Game faces on and not a lot of eye-contact. One athlete took a slightly less cautious approach. Sifan Hassan.

An Olympic champion over 5,000m and 10,000m, Hassan’s CV is stellar. The 30-year-old Dutch athlete is also a double world champion in the 1500m and 10,000m, holds the mile world record and has perhaps the greatest range of any female athlete in history. Hassan has run 1:56.81 over 800m, is the European record-holder over 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10,000m, 5km and half-marathon. Oh, and she’s claimed a European cross-country title.

Even though this was her first marathon, you might’ve expected an athlete of that calibre to be confident of upsetting the odds. Not a bit of it.

“Why the hell did I decide to do the marathon?” Hassan remarked to the 50 odd journalists in the room just two days before the event. It was a line more synonymous with the runners starting a couple of hours behind the elites but to hear it from a double Olympic champion? The candour was unexpected but not unsurprising.

Hassan, both on and off the track, is not your average athlete. At the Tokyo Olympics two years ago she attempted to be the first athlete in history to claim a treble of golds in the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m.

She won bronze in the former and won the latter two. “Why do I have to make myself so stressed?” Hassan stated after Tokyo. Well, quite.

When asked why she wanted to take on the marathon, the multiple global track champion said she was curious and wanted another challenge. The fact that Ramadan (March 22 – April 20) fell in such close proximity to the London Marathon was another obstacle to overcome. Hassan told AW that she did a 41km long run during Ramadan, meaning she was hardly able to practice drinking fluids.

Hassan arrived in London, primarily to test herself in uncharted waters.

She has a childish enthusiasm which comes across as incredibly innocent yet there is a steely determination beneath the surface. It’s like Hassan always feels like 99.9% isn’t enough and constantly has to prove herself, even though she’s already achieved success on mesmeric proportions. Both enigmatic and eccentric, it’s impossible not to like or watch her.

All of her personality traits, from the bonkers to the brilliant, unfolded in the London Marathon as individual  five kilometre splits turned into different chapters of the Hassan storybook.

For the first 15km or so, Hassan kept up with the leading pack and they went through the mark in a steady 48:43. Kosgei succumbed to a previous knee and hamstring injury and dropped out after three minutes. But such was the strength in depth of the field, Hassan’s path to an unlikely victory was narrow.

Then, around 17km, her left side tightened and the marathon debutant stopped not once but twice to stretch it. In preparation for London, she had actually switched from Ethiopia’s dirt roads to a 20km run on asphalt, which subsequently aggravated her quad. That flared up but in typical Hassan style, she later stated that she forgot to ask her physio to tape up her whole left leg on the morning of the race.

By 25km, Hassan had fallen back 28 seconds behind the leaders and looked in trouble.

Yet, the combination of a relatively ‘pedestrian’ 5km split of 16:28 at the front and sheer willpower from Hassan, saw her rejoin them at 30km and even a surge from Jepchirchir, which initially saw the pack establish a 14 second gap over Hassan by 35km, wasn’t enough to remove the threat of the Dutchwoman.

The only thing that could stop Hassan was herself.

She was the first to admit that it was going to be difficult to stomach fluids in the marathon due to the fact a large percentage of her training block took place during Ramadan. That’s if you can find the bottle.

As Hassan, Jepchirchir, Yehualaw and Alemu Megertu passed the London Eye, the debutant was blind to the last and crucial drinks station at 40km and narrowly avoided a collision with a support motorbike.

Hassan then bizarrely offered Yehualaw her own drink but last year’s winner was full of focus and barely glanced over.

As they approached The Mall, Yehualaw dropped off and Hassan, locked in a battle with Jepchirchir and Megertu, kicked away in the same fashion which has seen her win Olympic, world and European titles. The final 50m was Hassan’s easiest assignment.

Born in Ethiopia, she moved to the Netherlands aged 15 as a refugee and lived in a shelter for asylum seekers.

Never giving up wasn’t an option and Hassan has that mentality instilled into her head. She told AW that she had thought about stopping at 20km but a voice inside urged her to continue. The reaction when she hit the tape to win was of someone who won a marathon but didn’t know quite how they did it.

“I was telling myself I was stupid to run this marathon,” Hassan told the world’s media after the race. “I even cried because I was so scared. What was wrong with me?”

The ridiculous nature of the comeback and the relatability to the everyday runner made Hassan that popular she made the front pages of the UK national newspapers.

The headline to describe her victory in London could be taken out of a movie script. Run, Sifan, Run.