SIFAN HASSAN pointed to her left shoulder. “I have pain here,” she said. Then, her right leg. “Pain here.” Then, she dropped her hands to her sides in exhaustion, too tired to explain it anymore. “Pain there.” Winning the Olympics really can hurt sometimes. But it’s hard to keep the world’s busiest speed demon down for long. “Without coffee I would never be Olympic champion,” she joked after she scored two remarkable victories on the track at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday. Her gold-medal run in the women’s 5,000m came a mere 11 hours after she picked herself up from a scary fall on the final lap of her 1,500m heat to not only finish that race — but win it, as well. Those two wins kept Hassan, the Ethiopian-born 28-year-old who now competes for the Netherlands, very much in the mix for not one, not two, but three medals — in the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m. It will be an unprecedented Olympic triple and a feat that would mark her out as one of the greatest distance runners in the history of track and field competition. It’s a never-before-attempted Olympic journey that will require six races over eight days. It’s a journey most thought would be impossible even before the sort of fall that can take even the heartiest of runners off the track. The 1,500m heat should have been a no-fuss warmup for Hassan’s main event later in the day. Running from the back, as is her preference, she was gearing up to make her move as the phalanx of 15 runners approached the start of the final lap. But Kenya’s Edinah Jebitok stumbled and tumbled to the ground just in front of her. Hassan tried to save things by hurdling over her fallen opponent, but instead tripped and did half a barrel roll. Most runners might have called it a day, and Hassan said the thought crossed her mind for a split second. She could have filed a protest and potentially been moved along to the next round because the spill really wasn’t her fault. “But I told myself ‘No.’ I didn’t want to regret it later. I don’t want all the excuses,” she said. And so, in the span of two seconds, she was up again. What came next was one of the most remarkable 60-second laps in racing, as Hassan moved from the back of the pack, picking off runner after runner. All she needed to advance was a top-six finish. She ended up taking first. Exhausting work, but, Hassan conceded, “I felt like someone who drank 20 cups of coffee.” While social media blew up with tales of Hassan’s recovery, the track and field world waited through lunch and dinner to see what, if anything, she could possibly have left in the tank when she returned for her first gold-medal race in the 5,000m. Turned out to be plenty. Lingering in the back, then the middle of the pack for the first 11 laps on a track still soaked by an earlier rainstorm, she kicked things in with about 250 meters left. She won the race going away, in 14 minutes, 36.79 seconds — a pedestrian time for her, but amazing considering the circumstances. “They were running so slow. I felt OK. Every lap I felt OK,” she said. “Like somebody who is getting energy. I was actually not tired.” Hassan was 1.57 seconds ahead of Kenyan runner Hellen Obiri, and Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay took bronze. While most runners collapsed and gasped for breath at the end, Hassan kept on walking, at one point pointing to her chest and offering a look of amazement. Hassan may have raised eyebrows when she announced an unprecedented bid for triple Olympic gold in the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m, but on previous form she looks tailor-made to make history in Tokyo. She became the first athlete to achieve the 1,500m and 10,000m world double in Doha in 2019. It was a remarkable show of running, especially as it came after the news that her coach Alberto Salazar, the head of the Nike-funded Oregon Project, had been banned for four years over doping-related issues. “The hardest moment and pressure in my life was in Doha and I handled it,” she said earlier this month. “Tokyo will not be hard.” Hassan certainly did handle it, meeting the furore head-on after she had completed the double. “If they want to test me they can test me every single day. Every single day,” she said. Hassan failed to bow down to more potential criticism from detractors when she selected former Salazar assistant Tim Rowberry as her new coach. “Three years ago I made the choice to go to America,” she said in 2020 after choosing Rowberry. “I now have a familiar situation where I feel very much at home. “I have considered several options and met new people to find the right click, but I believe that my current training situation is the best way to successfully prepare for the Tokyo Olympics.” Hassan’s ability to handle herself off the track should be no surprise from someone who had the courage to flee Ethiopia in 2008 aged 15. She found sanctuary in the Netherlands, receiving a Dutch passport in 2013. For her it is no flag of convenience either. “Since I came [to the Netherlands] seven years ago, I’ve had no contact with the Ethiopian people; I’ve had more contact with the Dutch people,” Hassan said in 2015. “I feel more Dutch because I have more contact. “The more contact you have, the more strongly you feel about it.” Hassan has not completely cut herself off from all things Ethiopian. She counts Abebe Bikila, who famously won 1960 Olympic marathon gold running barefoot, as one of her three sporting heroes. However, it is the maxim of late boxing legend Muhammad Ali that dictates her intensive training regime. “I only start counting [the sit-ups] when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count. “That’s what makes you a champion.” Hassan’s treble bid echoes that of the “Czech Locomotive,” Emile Zatopek, who won 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon golds at the 1952 Olympics. She came through the 1,500m semifinal Wednesday and is likely to have to work much harder in the 1,500m final Friday to beat defending champion Faith Kipyegon, who outclassed her comfortably in the Monaco Diamond League meeting in July. The 10,000m to be held Saturday features formidable Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey, who finished second to Hassan at that distance in Doha, but smashed the Dutch runner’s world record in the event just two days after she had set a new mark in June. Hassan has warned both of her rivals she is physically in the “best shape” of her life, although mentally it may be another matter. “Many people think I’m crazy to try to win three distance events at the same Games,” she said after her first victory Monday. “Life is not about the goal or about the win. ... It’s about follow your heart.” “Right now if you can see inside of my mind you would think I am crazy.” The world will see soon enough whether there is logic in her craziness. Born in Adama, Ethiopia, in 1993, Hassan left the country as a refugee and arrived in the Netherlands in 2008 at 15. At 15, Hassan was young and didn’t know what to do in life. While studying to become a nurse, she turned to running as an interest but it soon became a passion and then a profession. There has been no looking back for her. She became a Dutch national in 2013 and made his first appearance for the Netherlands that year. She won the gold medal in the under-23 category at the 2013 European Cross Country Championships and helped the Dutch team finish third in the rankings. At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, Hassan won the bronze medal in the 1,500m. She won two gold medals at the 2019 World Championships, in the 1,500m and 10,000m events, becoming the only athlete (male or female) in history to win both events at a single World Championships or Olympic Games. (SD-Agencies) | 