Sifan Hassan became the first woman in Olympics history to rack up a very rare feat

Sifan Hassan landed gold in Women's marathon in Paris Olympics while levelling a 72-year-old feat in tournament history.

Sifan Hassan became the first woman in Olympics history to rack up a very rare feat

Sifan Hassan (Image via open source/X)

Sifan Hassan reshuffled pages of the history book after an incredible performance that carved new Olympic record in Paris. Acing the women’s marathon in front of a packed French crowd who cheered on, she also entered an elite pantheon to level the long-standing feat of Emil Zatopek that came way back in 1952.

Sifan Hassan claimed the gold medal in the women’s marathon in an Olympic record time of 2:22:55s to snatch a medal treble in Paris which added to her already illustrious tally of three medals in the history of Summer Games, clinched in Tokyo. Now with a total of six medals in her repertoire, she became one of the most decorated Dutch athletes of all time in the antiquity of Olympics.

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However, in the process of clinching gold in the women’s marathon, she also pulled off another unique feat of winning the ace in all three disciplines even though it was spanned across two editions of the Summer Games. She clinched gold in 5000m and 10,000m in Tokyo, while bagging the gold in the women’s marathon in 2024, making it a treble of gold medals, one in each discipline.

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Racking up this historic feat, she became the first woman in Olympics to claim this record. Emil Zatopek is the only other Olympian, and the only man, to do so.

After landing a treble in the Tokyo Olympics she competed in her debut marathon in London while following that up with a victory in the Chicago marathon which was in very quick succession of the 2023 World Athletics Championship in Budapest. Initially from Ethiopia, she shifted base to Netherlands as a teenager before realizing her love for running and what followed thereafter was history in the making.

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A glance at the Women’s Marathon in the Paris Olympics

It was an electric race to conclude the women’s marathon that saw a very closely contested equation between Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa and Hassan. Assefa concluded the race in the second place, crossing the finish line in 2:22:58, which landed her the silver, while Kenya’s Hellen Obiri clinched the bronze with a time frame of 2:23:10.

Sifan Hassan
Women’s marathon in Paris Olympics, image courtesy: X

The race picked up thrill in its dying embers with Hassan competing in this colossal stretch within just 37 hours of landing the bronze in 10000m, and six days of her first medal in Paris. The final stretch saw four contenders running neck-to-neck, starring the likes of Hassan, Assefa, Obiri and Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi. However, Lokedi lost track of the finish line as the remaining three rammed in with their last bout of pace, but the 31-year-old Dutch was persistent to win the gold.

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