Sifan Hassan’s quest for a sub 2 hours 10 minutes marathon: “It’s possible”
The reigning Olympic marathon champion has her sights set on the holy grail of women’s distance running as she aims to push the boundaries of female athletic performance.
Athletics
2024 was some year for Dutch distance runner Sifan Hassan. The rapid 32-year-old made history with her stunning victory in the Olympic marathon at Paris 2024. In doing so, she became the first woman to win gold in the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon at the Olympic Games, having achieved the first two of her three gold medals at Tokyo 2020.
However, as someone who is always looking for the next big challenge, Hassan’s goals for 2025 could see her once again rewrite the record books as she takes aim at a sub 2 hours and 10 minutes marathon.
“Maybe it takes me longer to work hard to achieve it [the sub 2:10 marathon],” she said in a recent interview with Athletics Weekly. “But Ruth Chepng’etich [the reigning world record holder] has shown me it’s possible.”
Hassan sets her sights on record times in an unprecedented era of marathon running
When Paula Radcliffe set a new marathon world record of 2:15:25 in 2003, the idea of a woman running a sub-2:10 marathon was not something people often discussed.
And in the 16 years that Radcliffe’s record stood, there was little to suggest any runner could come close to a time that was thought to be as mythical as a sub-two-hour men’s marathon.
However, since Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei broke Radcliffe’s mark with a time of 2:14:04 in the 2019 Chicago Marathon, women’s marathon times have tumbled.
In 2023, Tigst Assefa ran 2:11:53 at the Berlin Marathon, knocking over two whole minutes off of Kosgei’s best.
But it was the performance of Chepng’etich at the 2024 Chicago Marathon that really turned the athletics world on its head.
With her mark of 2:09:56*, Chepng’etich became the first-ever woman to dip below 2 hours and 10 minutes and set a new standard for female marathoners.
Hassan’s best 42.195km time, a 2:13:44 set at the 2023 Chicago Marathon, puts her third on the all-time list of fastest female marathoners.
But rather than being overawed by the almost four-minute distance between her own time and that of the current world record holder, the six-time Olympic medallist is eager to push herself to run a sub 2:10 marathon and with it push the boundaries of what’s possible in women’s sport.
“I want to see how far females can go,” she continued in her interview with Athletics Weekly. “To see what is inside me and what I can do.”
Top 10 women's marathons of all time
Sifan Hassan and the revolution in women's marathon running
Of the top 10 women’s marathon times in history, nine of them have been set in the past five years. In fact, eight of the times were set between 2022 and 2024, with six of the times coming in the last two years alone.
Recent advances in training techniques and shoe technology have enabled today’s marathon runners to set times previously thought to be decades away, and Hassan has been one of the athletes at the forefront of this running revolution.
The Ethiopian-born athlete only ran her first marathon in 2023, winning the London Marathon in a dramatic race that saw her trail by up to 28 seconds at one stage of the race.
But even though she is relatively new to the event, Hassan’s ability to adapt to the unique challenges of the marathon while still competing at the highest level on track has been nothing short of extraordinary.
At Paris 2024, she took on the challenge of the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon, winning bronze in the first two and gold in the latter.
Hassan has come a long way from the days before her first marathon attempt when she exclaimed, “I’m going to finish the distance or the distance is going to finish me.”
However, as an athlete who has made a career out of taking on outrageous challenges, you won’t want to miss the next stage of her journey as she aims to take marathon running into a sphere never seen before.
*Ruth Chepng’etich’s world record time is yet to be ratified by World Athletics