London Marathon 2025: Sifan Hassan among reigning Olympic and Paralympic champions confirmed
It looked like she would have to withdraw from her marathon debut two years ago when the inexperienced Hassan stopped on the side of the road to stretch out a hip injury mid-race, while her rivals disappeared down the road.
Instead, she beat Tokyo Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir and London 2022 champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw before charging towards glory, but only after nearly colliding with a support motorcycle.
Last summer, Hassan won the Olympic title in equally dramatic fashion.
She had already won bronze medals in both track and field events at the Tokyo Olympics, the 5,000m and 10,000m, but her performance in the marathon appeared to have declined, but she recovered and posted stunning sprint times.
“I don’t think I’m the greatest because if I thought that, I wouldn’t improve,” Hassan said.
Discussing her future ambitions, she added: “I’d like to try and run four marathons in a year and see how far I can get. Maybe closer to LA, I’d like to see how I handle it.”
“I also wanted to run a personal best on the track. I had a lot of things going on in my head and I was really crazy.
“A lot of athletes are good at one thing, but they don’t want to step out of their comfort zone. No one is perfect, I just want to try everything and see where I can go.”
