Sifan plants flag on first citadel
Hassan goes from falling in 1,500m heat to winning 5,000 gold for dramatic start in bid to win three golds
TOKYO: Dutch runner Sifan Hassan took a first, giant step in her bid for an unprecedented Olympic treble when she sprinted to gold in the 5,000m on Monday—but admitted she had been “so scared”.
Ethiopian-born Hassan, 28, produced a devastating final-lap sprint to time 14:36.79. Her victory was all the more remarkable given she had competed, and fallen, in the 1,500m heats earlier in the day.
Kenya’s two-time world champion Hellen Obiri claimed 5,000m silver in 14:38.36, with Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay taking bronze with 14:38.87.
Any fears Hassan might have to ride out tactics designed to thwart her from east African rivals Ethiopia and Kenya came to nothing in a slow-paced race that ended with an almighty bang that perfectly suited her explosive finishing skills.
It came after Hassan used up a lot of energy in falling at the bell of her 1,500m heat and clawed back a huge gap to qualify for the semi-finals. Hassan rolled, quickly got back to her feet and set about chasing down the pack astonishingly.
“When I fell down and had to jump up I felt like I was using so much energy,” she said after her victory in the 5,000m.
“I couldn’t believe the feelings in my legs. All the energy seemed to leave me. Before the race here I didn’t even care. I was so tired.”
Hassan said she owed her first Olympic gold medal to caffeine. “Without coffee I would never be Olympic champion. I needed all the caffeine. I was so scared I wasn’t going to do it.”
Emulating heroics of Nurmi, Zatopek
Hassan arrived in Tokyo aiming not just for the 5,000m, but also the 1,500m and 10,000m in an unprecedented tilt at middledistance
HASSAN'S RECORDS dominance.
Her “crazy” attempt—as she herself labelled it earlier—mirrors that of the great
Finnish racer Paavo
Nurmi, who won a jaw-dropping five gold medals within four days at the 1924
Paris Olympics.
That included the
1,500m and 5,000m final on the same day, apart from victories in 3,000m team event, individual cross country and team cross country. He was aiming for more—the 10,000m—but Finnish officials refused to allow him to compete in it fearing for his health. An unhappy Nurmi returned home and set a new 10,000m world record that stood for 13 years.
Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zatopek also dared to test his physical abilities to the fullest at the 1952 Helsinki Games. He won the 5,000m, 10,000m as well as the marathon (42km) as a rank outsider; all of them were also Olympic records.
Hassan’s schedule means she will run six races in eight days in the Tokyo heat and humidity, including the two races on Monday and the 1,500 and 10,000 finals on back-to-back days on Friday and Saturday.
Hassan, who was born in Ethiopia but moved to the Netherlands
as a refugee at the age of 15, became the first athlete to achieve the 1,500 and 10,000m world double in Doha in 2019, an astonishing display given that it coincided with a fouryear ban handed down to her then coach Alberto Salazar, the head of the now-disbanded Nike-funded Oregon Project.
The 5,000m in Tokyo had promised to be a potential banana skin. In Ethiopians Tsegay, Ejgayehu Taye and Senbere Teferi, and Kenya’s Obiri and Agnes Tirop, the entry list featured five of the world’s 10 fastest ever over the distance.
But she was happy to bide her time, eventually moving into the slipstream of the trio of Ethiopians, Obiri and Tirop, Kenyanborn Turk Yasemin Can and Ethiopian-born Israeli Selamawit Teferi.
Japanese pacer Ririka Hironaka fell off with six laps to go and Taye took up the running, but with neither the Kenyans nor other Ethiopians showing any urgency. Forming an orderly double-filed pack, the race almost had the feel of a training run, but with two laps to go, a lead group of seven broke free, although an outright attack never materialised. Obiri led Tsegay and Taye through the bell with Hassan moving up through the field and into the lead down the back straight.
Hitting the front with 250m to go, Hassan put on the afterburners, chased by Obiri, but the Dutchwoman produced a startling sprint finish to cap an incredible day’s running and herald an excellent start to her attempt to take home three gold medals. “Unless we try this, nothing is impossible,” Hassan said. “We have to try and then we can say it is impossible.”