The Tokyo Olympics have been full of legendary & incredible performances but I doubt there will be any greater than the treble of Sifan Hassan. When she let the world know that she was competing in the 1500m , the 5000m and the 10,000m at the same Olympic games, it was unprecedented. It meant she would be running 5 days out of the 9 day athletic schedule and she would be running more than 61 laps if she were to be a medal contender in all events. She would become the only athlete in history - male or female to win a medal at these events in the Olympic games.
There have been triple hauls before - the Finnish legend Paavo Nurmi won the 1500, 5000 and 10k cross country, the Czech locomotive - Emil Zatopek did the 5000m, 10000m, and the marathon in the 1952 helsinki Olympics. The double of the 5000m and the 10000m have been done by quite a few legends including Mo Farah, Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibala etc.Kelly Holmes did the 800m & 1500m in 2004 while El-Guerrouj did the 1500m & 5000m in the same Olympics. But a combination of the distances that Sifan Hassan was attempting was audacious and unprecedented. In an interview she stated that she doing it because she wanted to see how much she could push herself. Talk about pushing yourself out of ones comfort zone.
She starts off her journey in the 1500m heats. Her running style is mainly running at the back of the pack and then kicking up the pace in the end. She was towards the back of the pack with the last 400m to go when disaster struck. A couple of stumbles in the running pack ahead, created a ripple which led to Sifan Hassan colliding with a runner and tumbling to the ground. She rolled and almost in one motion was back on her feet and running. But precious seconds were lost and she was dead last with less than 300m to go. Her ambitous goal of the treble was almost over before it had even realistically started. Cliche as it sounds, but when the going gets the tough, the tough get going - she put in a kick over that one lap and overhauled all the athletes one by one. She needed to be in the top 4 to qualify but she ended up coming first- talk about sending a message of intent.
She won the first of her treble with the 5000m gold in convincing fashion and was up against the brilliant Faith Kipyegon in the 1500m. Sifan ran a tactically aggressive race but did not have the finishing power of Faith and the British runner Laura Muir. She finished with a bronze - a medal nevertheless.
The last event - 10000m was on the last day of the Olympics and she was up against the young Letesenbet Gidey who set the WR in both the 5000m and the 10000m. I watched the whole race and it was a tactical masterclass. Sifan instead of hanging at the back of the pack kept pace with Gidey throughout, when Gidey slowed down she did the same, when she upped the pace, Hassan was two steps behind prompting an annoyed Gidey to have a bit of a verbal diatribe with Hassan. But Hassan kept her head down, did not respond and kept Gidey in her crosshairs. In the final lap, in typical Hassan fashion she took off and there was no catching her. She broke into tears after crossing the finishing line, an indication of the enormity of the task on her mental strength. She admitted later thinking during her medal ceremony - "It is over , Now you can sleep"
What Sifan attempted in Tokyo was bold, audacious and without precedent. Doing the 5000m and 10000m double puts her in the league of legends, the 1500m bronze elevates her to the unchartered territory of trailblazers who show that impossible is nothing.
