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PARIS — Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands just made Olympic history.
With a hard, late kick, Hassan won the women’s marathon in an Olympic record time of two hours, 22 minutes and 55 seconds. Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa came in second, three seconds later. And Kenya’s Hellen Obiri took bronze, coming in at 2:23:10.
“When I finished, the whole moment was a release,” Hassan said after the race. “It is unbelievable. I have never experienced anything like that. Even the other marathons I have run were not close to this.”
During Sunday’s race, Hassan moved past Assefa on the inside, trading elbows with her with about 200 meters left to go. Assefa tried to rally, but ultimately could not catch up with her.
The gold-medal performance caps a stunning Olympics for Hassan, who had already won two bronze medals on the track at the Stade De France, in each of the women’s 5,000 and 10,000 meter races. She last raced in the 10,000 meters on Friday, meaning she had just 35 hours to recover ahead of her marathon performance.
Hassan, 31, is the first athlete to medal in all three distance events at a single Olympics since 1952. All told, she ran more than 62 kilometers, or 38 miles, at the Paris Olympics.
“The moment I started to feel good at 20 kilometers, I felt so good,” she said. “Then I knew I wanted gold. But everybody else was fresh, and all I was thinking was, ‘When are they going to break? They’re going to go hard.’”
In the men’s race, held on Saturday, Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola won the gold medal in an Olympic record time of two hours, six minutes and 26 seconds. Belgium’s Bashir Abdi finished 21 seconds behind him, and Kenya’s Benson Kipruto took third.
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