The Dutch-Ethiopian athlete is living up to the greatest-ever runner tag and wants to create a lasting legacy for young females to take up sports.
For Sifan Hassan, the most striking moment in any race, regardless of whether she’ll win or not, comes a couple hundred meters before the finishing line.
The three-time Olympic gold winner has ended up in the positive side more often than most, but there are moments where Hassan has had to wrestle with the self-doubt like everyone.
As she sat down in front of a room full of people on Saturday, Hassan spoke with confidence, acknowledging the vulnerabilities that come with being a female athlete in the age of mainstream attention.
“It is normal to get overwhelmed”, she said and admitted she has had to “build the mettle”.
Hassan highlighted the importance of not “giving up” and her latest initiative, as an ambassador of Qatar Foundation’s Creating Pathways, is geared towards just that by inspiring women and girls through running.
One attendee questioned what keeps her going from one distance to another and excel in every single one of them.
“Confidence,” she answered, noting one of the main motives of her joining the initiative is to instill confidence in females and how that translates to families’ and ultimately the societies’ well-being.
“Happiness and confidence can come through sports. We all are beautiful, we all have the capability to excel at things. We just need to be confident and I hope to contribute in any way I can,” she added.
It would, however, be an understatement to limit the Dutch-Ethiopian runner’s achievement so far to just confidence. She won medals at the 5000-meter, 10000-meter, and the grueling 40-kilometer marathon in Paris. Three years ago in Tokyo, she had won gold in 5000 and 10000-meters and finished third in the 1500-meter event.
“I used to try to run very fast on my way to school in Ethiopia,” she said, “because I woke up late. If I did not run fast enough, I would not make it and as I kept getting faster, I started waking up even later.”
In the era of hyper specialisation, many consider Hassan’s feat the greatest performance ever by an athlete in the summer games. The endurance she embodies is generational, according to one of the runners who competed with Hassan in Paris, and that she had solidified herself as the “greatest distance runner of all time if she was not already.”
‘The key is to keep trying’
In Hassan’s early life, it was not easy as she was forced to leave her country of birth as a refugee at age 15 in 2008 to arrive in Netherlands, the country she represents now.
Choosing to focus on what she has rather than what she doesn’t “always helped” her, Hassan said. One recent instance she remembers is the build-up to Paris Olympics, where she did not have the most convincing of performances and had to actively push through the pain.
“The key is to keep trying. If today’s dark, tomorrow there will be light. You just have to deal with it,” she added.
In hindsight, however, it almost seems like a fairytale for Hassan, who left Paris with a claim at greatness. Her crowning moment was fitting too, as she wore a Hijab to receive the gold medal from the International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach in the grand closing ceremony.
She attributes her self-discipline and the ability to get back up after losses to Islam, and says the medal ceremony was an ode to her faith.
“There is a connotation that Muslim girls are weak, because they are being told to wear a Hijab,” she said. “It is not accurate. I’m a Muslim, I’m Olympic champion, and I’m strong. That’s what I want to convey and instill with this collaboration.”
