London Marathon-bound distance runner talks about the psychology behind her multiple medal-winning challenges, the “beauty” of doing difficult things and the lessons the new generation of athletes need to learn
Sifan Hassan is human, after all. Just a couple of days before this interview had taken place last month, the woman who created history by winning Olympic 5000m and 10,000m bronze and then marathon gold in Paris had gone for a short run.
After a long break and an autumn spent slowing down, catching up with old friends and family, “wasting a lot of time and just feeling a bit lazy”, the 31-year-old was getting back to work. It was an inauspicious start.
“I ran 5km and it hurt,” she says. “The pain in my legs when I started running… it hurt a lot.”
A wide grin, and a hearty chuckle are never far away when Hassan is concerned, however. The pleasure she experienced during 2024 from that medal haul clearly outweighs the pain. “I still have a big smile whenever I think about it.”
And rightly so. Hassan became the first athlete since Emile Zatopek in 1952 to win medals in those three events at a single Games, a feat that had followed hot on the heels of her completing the 5000m/10,000m double and winning 1500m bronze at the Tokyo Olympics three years previously.
Sifan Hassan (GSC)
The woman who has run a total of four marathons so far has suggested that her next big goal will be to tackle that same number of 26.2-mile efforts within the space of a single year and, given the eye-wateringly difficult nature of these challenges, the very fact that she gives herself such enormous workloads would suggest an innate fearlessness and unshakeable confidence. The reality is rather different.
Hassan has spent much of her life feeling the fear and doing it anyway. It was the case in 2008 when the then 15-year-old moved as a refugee from her native Ethiopia to the Netherlands, the country for which she now competes with such distinction. It was the case, too, when she moved to America in 2017 to work with the now disgraced coach Alberto Salazar at the now defunct Nike Oregon Project (Tim Rowberry became her lead coach after Salazar’s ban). These were huge leaps to make but they have been life changing.
Sifan Hassan and Tim Rowberry (GSC)
“When I came to the Netherlands and then decided to go to America, these were the hardest moments, but also beautiful things happened to me because of the challenge,” she says. “I made some decisions that I thought were impossible, but I tried. You know, that’s why I’m not scared of trying.
“Things come into my mind. I’m a normal person. I can be scared. I always doubt but, because I have been through so many challenges, even when I’m scared I still try. Whenever I look back, that’s actually the key to me. It was hard but also beautiful.”
How difficult was it for the teenage Hassan, who had grown up in the Ethiopian countryside, to adjust to life in central Europe? Upon her arrival, she moved to a shelter for young asylum seekers but has always kept her counsel on why she left her home country in the first place.
“It’s a totally different culture and then you’ve got to make friends, you have to adjust to the way you live, the way you eat, the way people live life, and even the weather,” she says. “[It’s like] I have to live that way. Time makes it better.”
Sifan Hassan (GSC)
When she moved into a house with other asylum seekers Hassan told her supervisor she would like to run. She joined an athletics club, where her talent soon became evident. The first honour of her career arrived in 2013 with under-23 gold at the European Cross Country Championships and, by the time the next difficult decision of her life needed to be made, more success had followed.
“The hardest moment came when I had to make a decision to move forward, to dream bigger and move to America,” she says. “I was already really good. I was world indoor champion and winning Diamond Leagues and Diamond League finals but then it was: ‘I’m going to go to America. What if that doesn’t work?’
“It made me so scared. ‘What if I don’t do well, what if I go there and it doesn’t work?’ But I’m also somebody who, when I’m into something, I go until the end. I’m not going to give up immediately.
“If I go to America and it doesn’t work for one year, two years, I won’t immediately give up. I’m going to try. I don’t lose hope. I imagined myself having nothing, and I was imagining myself also successful so I still made that decision.
“It made [my success] beautiful so, when it comes to things like taking on three events in Tokyo and Paris, because those moments [in my life] were so hard it makes those [racing] decisions easy. My curiosity wins over my fear.”
Sifan Hassan (GSC)
That inquisitiveness has been a key driving force in the decisions Hassan has taken in her professional career and the multi-faceted Olympic missions she has undertaken. Her next big challenge will be in the London Marathon on April 27 – a distance that Hassan admits keeps teaching her lessons.
Her first attempt came in London in 2023, when an erratic performance that included having to stop and stretch twice ended with her sprinting to victory down The Mall. Later that year came Chicago and a European record of 2:13:44, before a fourth place in Tokyo last year that preceded the extraordinary flying finish in Paris that saw off Tigist Assefa.
“I’m crazy curious and I’m also a high risk taker,” adds Hassan. “I’m learning to go to the fear and being scared but then thinking ‘let’s find out’. I think when you finish [a marathon], the endorphins release the happiness and that’s why it makes people curious.
“I’ve run four marathons, all of them different. In London, I was new to it all and in the last 5km I was already celebrating – I didn’t even feel the pain. Then, in Chicago, I was suffering so much in the last three or four kilometres. I was in world record shape but the marathon sucks your energy very slowly so in the closing stages I was hating the marathon and saying: ‘No way am I going to do this to myself.’ I just wanted to sit down.
“Tokyo was totally different and Paris was so hard doing the three distances but in the last 200m/300m I didn’t feel the pain. My brain took over my body and I was so empowered. The brain was just telling the body what to do. I felt like someone who had just been sleeping but woke up at that moment.”
Sifan Hassan (LM Events)
“It feels so special to come back to the TCS London Marathon,” says Hassan. “This is where I ran my very first marathon and began my journey in this incredible distance. London is also where I learned to be patient, to trust myself, and to keep pushing even when it feels impossible. It is a place where I grew, not just as an athlete, but as a person.”
Another marathon performance that gained global attention last year was Ruth Chepngetich’s world record-blitzing run of 2:09:56 in Chicago. It was a run that gave the sport a seismic jolt but, rather than be suspicious or frustrated about such a massive jump forward, Hassan – a former mile and 10,000m world record-holder – insists she felt excited.
“It was unbelievable and at that moment my brain couldn’t process it,” she says of Chepngetich’s run. “We already had 2:11 [Assefa’s previous record of 2:11:53] and that was also shocking but after I processed it I was really happy that she did it. I don’t care how she did it, how she trained or any of that but she has shown that it’s possible.
“Maybe it takes me longer to work hard and to achieve but she has shown me that it is possible. A female can run sub 2:10 and that makes things easy for me. Now, when I train, I’m not wondering if it’s possible or not possible. I’m trying to hit that thing. In my time I want to see how females can go further, to see what is inside me and what I can do.
“I don’t want to get to 55 and see a female running amazingly well and be thinking: ‘Oh man, I wish I was back there so I could try’. When Faith [Kipyegon] broke my mile world record people were saying to me: ‘You must be so sad’ but I said: ‘It’s great! She showed me [it can be broken]’. I want to put out what’s inside me so that I don’t have any regrets.”
Sifan Hassan (Getty)
The role of shoe technology in the pushing of those limits is a talking point that will not go away. The advance of carbon-plated footwear has undoubtedly played its part, but it irks Hassan that what an athlete is wearing on their feet gets so much of the credit and the attention. In fact, she believes it is affecting the mental resilience of some competitors.
“It really annoys me because it doesn’t matter what shoe it is, the athlete still has to work,” she says. “It’s good that we have it and that they have improved the technology, but it’s not [just] the shoe. I have to freaking work hard.
“I overtrained before Paris, so if the shoe [is doing all the work] then how the hell can I overtrain? Also, the athlete finishes number one and the athlete that finishes number 20, they wear the same shoes. It annoys me that they always say ‘it’s the technology’.
“Jos [Hassan’s manager and former athlete Jos Hermens] used to run 13:21 [for 5000m] in a heavy shoe and [his generation] really had a strong mentality but the new generation don’t [all] have that tough mentality. Now we always believe [a performance is] because of doping, because of the shoes or something else.
“We don’t have to point to these other things. [Do it properly] and you will be consistent and every morning you’ll be able to wake up, look in the mirror and be able to say ‘I did this’ and be proud of yourself.
“The young generation have to suffer but because of the shoes, when they feel the pain they think ‘I’m not talented’. They go home because they have the wrong idea in their head. I suffer, I throw up, I cry [and the shoes can’t help that].”
Speaking to Hassan is never dull and the same can be said when she races. Just don’t ever assume that getting to that start line has been straightforward.
» In addition to Hassan, reigning Olympic and Paralympic champions Tamirat Tola, Catherine Debrunner and Marcel Hug will also race in London on April 27.
Factfile – Sifan Hassan
Born: January 1, 1993
Events: 800m/1500m/Mile/3000m/5000m/10,000m/Half Marathon/Marathon
PBs: 1:56.81/3:51.95/4:12.33/8:18.49/14:13.42/29:06.82/65:15/2:13:44
Major Honours:
2024: Olympic marathon gold, 5000m and 10,000m bronze
2023: World Championships 5000m silver and 1500m bronze
2021: Olympic 5000m and 10,000m gold, 1500m bronze
2019: World Championships 1500m and 10,000m gold
2018: World Indoor Championships 3000m silver and 1500m bronze; European Championships 5000m gold
2017: World Championships 5000m bronze
2016: World Indoor Championships 1500m gold; European Championships 1500m silver
2015: World Championships 1500m bronze; European Indoor Championships 1500m gold; European Cross Country Championships senior gold
2014: European Championships 1500m gold and 5000m silver
2013: European Cross Country Championships U23 gold
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