In the row of athletes presented on the tartan track of the sunny stadium in Hengelo as the crowd pullers of the FBK Games, one is significantly smaller than the others. Sifan Hassan can barely wrap her arms around the shoulders of the athletes on either side.
She doesn’t seem to be fully present in the stadium with her thoughts. When Femke Bol, one of the other faces of the event, rushes by to give a high five, Hassan sees it at the very last moment. Pole vault world record holder Armand Duplantis, standing next to her, bursts into laughter. When the row turns to hear the Wilhelmus, Hassan only realizes this after the first tones.
But the applause of the audience is the loudest for her. Because of her honors list, the largest of all participants with multiple Olympic and world titles, and because of the joy that the most successful Dutch athlete of the moment can once again be admired in her own country. The stadium is sold out.
Hassan ran her first competitions on Dutch soil in two years this weekend. She spends most of the year in the US state of Utah, where her coach Tim Rowberry is from, or in her native Ethiopia – two places where she can train at altitude and in the heat. That’s what makes her strongest, her coach and she say. Hassan landed at Schiphol last Thursday especially for the FBK Games, and she will leave for the United States on Tuesday.
Request for the organization
It was Hassan’s own idea to run in Hengelo, says her manager Jos Hermens, who is responsible for organizing the FBK Games with his company Global Sports Communication. “We hadn’t taken into account that she would participate.” This is evident from the foreword to the program book, in which Hassan’s name is missing from the list of world top players.
After it became clear that Hassan would participate, she had another request for the organization. Whether she could run a 10,000 meters and a 1,500 meters, one day in a row. According to Hermens, this has never been seen before. His organization planned the 10 kilometers for Hassan on Saturday evening, followed by the mile on Sunday.
They were also Hassan’s first races since her victory at the London Marathon. There she made her debut at the classic distance of 42.195 meters, in one of the strongest fields ever. Despite pain in her left hip, which forced her to stop to stretch during the race. she crossed the finish line first.
It is a victory that appeals to the imagination of many. The commercial attention for Hassan has increased enormously, says Hermens, although he does not want to say which potential sponsors are involved. Despite the late announcement, a long side of the stadium is still packed to see Hassan in action when she wins the 10,000 meters on Saturday evening.
Look at the World Cup
After the London Marathon, Hassan’s eyes have completely shifted to the World Athletics Championships, which will take place in Budapest in August. In the Hungarian capital, Hassan wants to become world champion on the track in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, the distances on which she won Olympic gold in Tokyo. She may also run the 1,500 meters, the distance at which she finished third at the same Games.
Training for the marathon is pushed into the background. Hassan only does an endurance run from time to time, about once every two weeks and then about 35 kilometers, says her coach Rowberry. Physically, that switch can be made for her, as it turned out on Saturday evening when she ran a time of 29.37.80 in the 10,000 meters. That was the best time of the year worldwide, although the outdoor season has only just started.
Hassan said at a press conference last Thursday that she herself thinks she still lacks speed. When training for the marathon, she felt like she had to hold back all the time. Now that she has started training on the track again, she feels like she has to go all out. The content is there, she said, but the speed is not quite there yet.
Mentally, Hassan found the transition more difficult. That also has to do with the pace, says Hermens. “If you train for the 10 kilometers, for example, you have to run a kilometer eight times with a short break in between. Then the long runs you have to run for the marathon are, in the words of Haile Gebrselassie [een van de beste langeafstandslopers ooit], a breeze. Switching back is then difficult.”
It also had to do with a lack of confidence, says Rowberry. “She hadn’t run 1,500 meters in two years, so she felt she lacked that basis and that led to some doubts.”
Hassan herself says on Sunday evening that she had trouble sleeping in bed the night before. “I was nervous, because I thought I had lost my speed,” she says after the 1,500 meters. She just won it with a big lead after a powerful final sprint over the last two hundred meters.
So the speed was good, Hassan also concludes with a big smile when she sees that her time is 3:58.12. Well below the four-minute mark she wanted to break, but still almost 10 seconds behind the world record set by Kenyan Faith Kipyegon in Florence last Friday. Nevertheless, Hassan is happy. “It’s a good time, so this is a good weekend. The switch is now mentally all the way back to the job.”
In addition to the 5 and 10 kilometers, will Hassan really run the mile at the World Cup in Budapest? She doesn’t know yet, she says. Although her coach Rowberry does see that happening, he says. “I don’t think she will give up that distance just like that, unless she feels it really won’t work. But today showed that we are already well on our way.”
And according to manager Hermens, the plan for Hassan is already clear after that: another marathon will probably follow in the fall.
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