Sifan Hassan to headline London Marathon as Olympic champion says: 'I'm really crazy'
Sifan Hassan to headline London Marathon as Olympic champion says: 'I'm really crazy'
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Olympic champion Sifan Hassan will headline April’s TCS London Marathon. And the Dutch maverick, who won marathon gold after a pair of bronzes on the track in Paris, says she is still looking to do “unlimited, amazing things” across every distance from 1500m up to 26.2 miles.
After London, where she won on debut in 2023, the 32-year-old will go back to the track for September’s World Championships in Tokyo and she is still determined to get faster over all of her distances. Next year she is already planning to run four marathons in 12 months - double the number typically targeted by the very best. “I wanna see how many I can handle,” she says. "I’m really crazy. If you open my head there are so many things inside it.”.
And while Hassan is redefining how people view distance running, she is firmly rebuffing any notion that she is the greatest female endurance star of all time. “I don’t think I’m the greatest because if I think that I’m not going to push myself,” she says. “People just focus on one thing to be the best but I’ll go everywhere. I don’t want to be the best, the GOAT, because I have so much curiosity and so many goals in my head that if I think I’m the GOAT then I won’t improve.”.
Hassan holds the European record for six distances and ranks in the top 10 of all time in the 1500m, mile, 5000m, 10000m, half marathon and the marathon. Few can match that breadth and she still thinks there is a chance of bettering her time at all distances. “I think I can but I cannot say 100%,” she adds. “I’m scared. In my head one part says it’s not going to happen, in another it says it’s possible.”.
