0I just watched the Olympic Marathon and had zero clue after the 5000/10000 double bronze that Sifan Hassan from Netherlands was doing the marathon. I watched the women’s 1500m on Saturday and figured that a 1500 finals after a 10000 finals on Friday night that the schedule made it impossible and then on Sunday I saw here in the marathon lead pack barely 36 hrs after the 10000 finals.
As I watched the marathon I was thinking 'she must be tired and saving the matches to see if this can boil down to a 5000m race and I side that a 1500m and that’s what exactly happened and suddenly the last 200m turned into exactly like the final 200m in a 1500m at a track meet.
Did anyone in recent memory do that triple? And she gets bronze bronze gold ???
That was wild. I am not a historian of the sport (and too lazy to do even a little homework until after my second coffee this Sunday morning). But 3 medals across 5, 10, and marathon seems like unprecedented, or at least generational, versatility and virtuosity. Seems like she took all the great things she had done before in her career, and compressed them into a singularity.
Looking at the marathon results, Hassan’s time is barely 1.5 minutes faster than what Joan Benoit ran 40 years ago in LA 1984. I was scanning the times across the line and Joan’s time get’s her 7th place today on an equivalently difficult course in equivalent heat. That’s not saying there is no doping now, but if you include supershoes and superior training, the 2:22.xx time is nothing crazy. What is crazy was the final 1500m today. It “felt” like a track meet, not a marathon. But we can’t ignore pharma in elite sports, so not saying no to your point, nor supporting it, Sifan was in a pack of 5 runners with barely 2km to go who were not going much faster than the gold medalist from 40 years ago (they were only running 2 s faster per km than Joan, and they have supershoes). So take from that what you want.
I am not sure anyone has medalled in the 1500/5000/10000 and then done it in the 5000/10000/marathon three years later. That seems insane. Didn’t she run something like a sub 60 final lap in the women’s 5000M?
The most staggering thing about these results is the turnaround from the 10,000 to the marathon, 36 hours. If it was a week or even 5 or 6 days fair enough but 36 hours is insane.
There is no way the 1984 LA marathon course was as tough as the Paris course. There was one uphill that was 2k long. The runners were bent over going up. The downhill was so steep that runners completely lost their form - their arms were flying all over the place.
Also, USATF calls the alternate to come to Paris to be ready, didn’t know which runner it was that was injured. Today we find out which one, Fionna O’Keeffe DNF’s before the 5k mark.
Make no mistake if we had a medal chance she would have been scratched.
Looking at the marathon results, Hassan’s time is barely 1.5 minutes faster than what Joan Benoit ran 40 years ago in LA 1984.
I also have your optimism. This seemed to be the first Olympics in a while not chock full of WR.
Added to that the athletes look different - the 100m mens, for example - much less “pumped” than in the past.
Also there seemed to be a lot more sporting behaviour between athletes, maybe this is also a good sign - triathlon at the forefront of that .
Where the difficulty lies in the future is the trans discussion.
I don’t see a single female → male athlete. Only male → female. Why is that? Is trans one way only?
If you’re born male and think you’re female, that’s fine. Really fine. But then boxing born women out of the ring is a problem. I’m curious how this develops.
I’m also curious as to why we see no female → male in competition.
I’ll get hammered for this, of course, but nevertheless it’s a problem. On one side recent years have done a lot for recognition of women, in all walks of life and rightly so.
On the other, you can just identify as female an win.
The reason you see no female to male athletes at the Olympics is that female athletes are not competitive against males. Transitioning won’t change that.
0I just watched the Olympic Marathon and had zero clue after the 5000/10000 double bronze that Sifan Hassan from Netherlands was doing the marathon. I watched the women’s 1500m on Saturday and figured that a 1500 finals after a 10000 finals on Friday night that the schedule made it impossible and then on Sunday I saw here in the marathon lead pack barely 36 hrs after the 10000 finals.
As I watched the marathon I was thinking 'she must be tired and saving the matches to see if this can boil down to a 5000m race and I side that a 1500m and that’s what exactly happened and suddenly the last 200m turned into exactly like the final 200m in a 1500m at a track meet.
Did anyone in recent memory do that triple? And she gets bronze bronze gold ???
Scroll down to the section “Does this make Sifan Hassan the greatest distance runner ever?” for a comparison with other similar efforts. (Spoiler: there are none among women. There are greater achievements among men, but not since Zatopek in 1952.)
There is no way the 1984 LA marathon course was as tough as the Paris course. There was one uphill that was 2k long.//
If they were run in a vacummn then yes. But just like Kona is an easy course, the heat there changes everything drastically, which if you remember, the 1984 marathon was quite hot, unlike today where conditions were moderate in comparison…
I don’t see a single female → male athlete. Only male → female. Why is that? Is trans one way only?
If you’re born male and think you’re female, that’s fine. Really fine. But then boxing born women out of the ring is a problem. I’m curious how this develops.
I’m also curious as to why we see no female → male in competition.
I’ll get hammered for this, of course, but nevertheless it’s a problem. On one side recent years have done a lot for recognition of women, in all walks of life and rightly so.
On the other, you can just identify as female an win.
There is no way the 1984 LA marathon course was as tough as the Paris course. There was one uphill that was 2k long.//
If they were run in a vacummn then yes. But just like Kona is an easy course, the heat there changes everything drastically, which if you remember, the 1984 marathon was quite hot, unlike today where conditions were moderate in comparison…
I think it only topped out at 28C by the time the top racers were done today. It did not feel that hot. I was not in LA but my understanding it was a rolling hilly course in hot condition. The 400m vertical in Paris was in the middle of the course but the front 10km and back 10km were largely beside the Seine with overpass and underpass magnitude ramps
I don’t see a single female → male athlete. Only male → female. Why is that? Is trans one way only?
If you’re born male and think you’re female, that’s fine. Really fine. But then boxing born women out of the ring is a problem. I’m curious how this develops.
I’m also curious as to why we see no female → male in competition.
I’ll get hammered for this, of course, but nevertheless it’s a problem. On one side recent years have done a lot for recognition of women, in all walks of life and rightly so.
On the other, you can just identify as female an win.
We’ll see how it develops
Nikki Hiltz, US, 1500
let’s at least get our facts straight here, fellas:
first athlete that came to my mind was zatopek. maybe lasse viren?
…
OK, some googling suggests: viren did the double-double, which is pretty bloody insane, but “only” finished 5th in his only olympic marathon.
zatopek did indeed do the 5/10/marathon at the same games, all gold, within the space of 7 days. it was the first marathon he ever ran.
I forgot about the stories about Zatopek’s triple but did he do it against that depth of field. Her 5k/10k was only around a combined 1s off getting two gold and her marathon win came down to the final 200m. She had pressure from competitors all the way.
Lasse Viren and Mo Farah on the 2 Games 5/10 double gold’s. But bridging up to the marathon in the same games and down to the 1500m in same games (Rio) is Hassan territory in the last 50 years !
And she is unbeaten since doing marathons in 2023 in London and Chicago !!!
The most staggering thing about these results is the turnaround from the 10,000 to the marathon, 36 hours. If it was a week or even 5 or 6 days fair enough but 36 hours is insane.