Sifan Hassan rejects greatest-ever claim and confirms London Marathon entry

Sifan Hassan has dismissed suggestions that she is the greatest female distance runner of all time despite winning Olympic marathon gold and 10,000m and 5,000m bronze medals over six extraordinary days in Paris.

That made the Dutch athlete, who has just been announced as the star attraction for this year’s London Marathon, the first person to win medals in those three events in one Games since Emil Zatopek in 1952.

However Hassan, who has also previously held world records in the mile and the 10,000m, refuses to believe she is the greatest ever as she thinks it will stop her pushing on to even greater heights.

“I don’t think I am the Goat,” she said. “Because if I do, I’m not going to improve myself. Everybody has improvement in them, as long they don’t give up. Even when you think you are amazing, you always have room to become more amazing.”

That includes plans to go faster at every distance from a mile to a marathon, as well as running four major marathons in a year.

“I’m really crazy,” she said. “If you open my head, it has so many things. If I try to do something, or if I’m closer, I will tell myself: ‘Oh, I’m the Goat of my imagination.’ I want to see what can I do. And I have room to improve.”

Hassan won the London Marathon in 2023 despite crying before the start, stopping twice to stretch an injured hip, and then nearly being taken out by a motorbike. But that victory in her first race over 26.2 miles sowed the seeds for Paris a year later.

Sifan Hassan celebrates winning the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

“London is in my heart,” she said. “A miracle happened to me by working hard, by practising, by trying. I never dreamed that I was going to win marathon gold. But after I finished London my brain suddenly thought about Paris.”

“Then before Paris, I really struggled. I had overtrained. When I arrived, I thought: ‘OK my Olympic year is over.’ I had no I have no desire. But I thought I just do my best.”

Since that victory, Hassan has seen Ruth Chepngetich become the first woman to run the marathon in under 2hr 10min, her time of 2:09:56 breaking the world record by over two minutes. But she believes she can go quicker – eventually.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “No one thought a female would run that time. I’m really happy that she did it, because I don’t care how she did it, she just showed me it is possible.

“If I train it correctly, it will maybe take me two years. First I have be in 2:11 shape. Then 2:10. And then run that time. But it is possible.”