SAINT-DENIS, France – It was a fashion statement that was true Sifan Hassan, fearless, defiant.

At end of a day in which she confirmed her status of the greatest female distance runner ever by winning the Olympic Games marathon, Hassan, the quiet, soft-spoken Dutch runner, sent a message around the world without saying a word.

Hassan stepped atop the medal podium during the closing ceremony at Stade de France Sunday night, wearing a hijab, a traditional head covering for Muslim women banned during these Paris Games by several sports federations including the French Olympic Committee.

It was a fitting ending to a day and a Games where Hassan, 31, defied her critics and the sports conventional wisdom by running an Olympic record 2 hours, 22 minutes, 55 seconds over a historic but hilly 26.2 mile course on a scorching morning and despite having already run three previous races, more than 12 miles of running in Paris.

Hassan sprinted away from Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa in the final 200 meters to knock 12 seconds off Ethiopian Tiki Gelana’s 12-year-old Olympic record and claim her third career gold medal, the sixth medal of her career.

“When I finished, the whole moment was a release,” Hassan said. “It is unbelievable. I have never experienced anything like that. When I finished, I couldn’t stop celebrating. I was feeling dizzy. I wanted to lie down. Then I thought, ‘I am the Olympic champion. How is this possible?’”

It is a question that has often been asked through a career in which no athlete, male or female, has come close to matching her range.

She’s made a World Championship final at 800 meters, set the world record at 10,000 meters and won Olympic gold medals at three different distances.

“It’s so amazing to do track and marathon,” said Kenya’s Hellen Obiri, the bronze medalist Sunday at 2:23.11. “So many can’t do it. But Sifan has shown the world that she can do everything. These things are impossible for me.”

Hassan was born in the Ethiopian countryside not far from the Great Rift Valley. She immigrated to the Netherlands at age 15 as a refugee in hopes of studying nursing. Her nursing career was put on hold as she emerged as a world-class middle-distance runner. She won the 2016 World Indoor 1,500.

She broke the world mile record in July 2019, running 4:12.33, and held it for another four years. Later that summer she won the 1,500 and 10,000 at the World Championships in Qatar, the only athlete, male or female, to win both races in a single Olympic Games or Worlds.

Hassan swept the 5,000 and 10,000 gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, adding a bronze medal in the 1,500, an unprecedented triple.

“She is amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing,” said Sharon Lodeki of Kenya, the fourth-place finisher in Paris. “She’s just awesome. Who can do that? Who can come from track and win the marathon? I feel like I just want to be her.”

For Paris, Hassan turned her attention to what many in the sport were calling “the Zatopek,” sweeping the Olympic 5,000, 10,000 and marathon gold medals as Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zatopek did at the 1952 Games in Helsinki. Hassan actually said she considered running the 1,500 in Paris was eventually talked out of it by her coach.

She picked up a bronze in the 5,000 and then another in the 10,000 Friday night. But her critics – and many of her supporters – questioned how she would have anything left just 35 hours later for one of the toughest marathon courses in Olympic history on a morning when temperatures reached the upper 80s.

Even Hassan had her doubts.

“I have no words,” she said. “Every moment in the race I was regretting that I ran the 5000 meters and 10,000 meters. I was telling myself if I hadn’t done that, I would feel great today.

“From the beginning to the end, it was so hard. Every step of the way. I was thinking, ‘Why did I do that? What is wrong with me?’ If I hadn’t done it, I would feel so comfortable here.

“The moment I started to feel good at 20 (kilometers), I felt so good. 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, they’re going to go hard.’”

As the race headed into the final mile, four runners still battled for the lead, Ethiopian Assefa, Kenya’s Obiri and Lodeki with Hassan running behind them. Then Lodeki faded, followed by Obiri in the final 800. With about 200 remaining Hassan swung wide to pass Assefa, who scooted over, appearing to try and run the Dutch runner into the barriers. There was contact and in the NBA Hassan might have been called for a foul but an Ethiopian protest was denied.

After more than 26 miles, Hassan took her first lead of the day, winning by three seconds.

“I feel like I am dreaming,” she said. “I only see people on the TV who are Olympic champions. The marathon is something else, you know. When you do 42 kilometers in more than two hours and 20 minutes, then every single step you feel so hard and so painful.

“When I finished, the whole moment was a release. It is unbelievable. I have never experienced anything like that. Even the other marathons I have run were not close to this.”

Hassan knew she was on TV 10 hours later at the marathon medal presentation at the closing ceremony, a decades-old Olympic tradition. Hassan’s usual preferred headwear is a baseball cap, usually worn backward, or a simple orange or blue headband. For her official Olympic ID she was photographed wearing an orange baseball cap again backwards.The ball caps and headbands had been replaced by a simple crimson hijab as IOC president Thomas Bach placed yet another gold medal around her neck.

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