Having qualified last Friday in the 5,000m heats, Hassan will compete in the final today, 5 August. Following that, the athlete will run the 10,000m next Friday and the marathon on Sunday. This sequence of events represents a level of physical strain no other woman has attempted before. "I'm quite curious to see how it turns out," Hassan recently admitted during a video press conference. "Running the marathon with just one day of rest... We'll see."

Hassan, a Dutch athlete of Ethiopian origin and an Olympic medalist in long-distance and middle-distance running, continues to be a source of inspiration for the young people who train today at the facilities where she developed as a runner more than a decade ago.

Her story embodies the challenge of overcoming obstacles. She arrived in the city of Eindhoven as a young refugee seeking asylum. Following this significant journey, her effort and discipline helped her excel years later at Eindhoven Atletiek, chart a successful career on the tracks, and triumph at the Tokyo Olympics with two gold medals and one bronze in the 5,000m, 10,000m, and 1,500m events, respectively.

Her trajectory has positioned her as one of the main contenders for the Paris games. Ad Peeters, president of the Eindhoven Atletiek coaching team, says he always saw that the young runner who appeared at their facilities by chance had the makings of a talented athlete.

Hassan was born in Adama, southeast of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Although she was raised on a farm by her mother and grandmother during her childhood, at the age of 15, for reasons still unknown, she decided to head to the Netherlands in search of new and better opportunities.

The first thing she did upon arrival was find accommodation in a youth center in the municipality of Zuidlaren, in the north of the country. She has acknowledged that during this time, she did nothing but cry daily. "It was like a flower that didn't receive sunlight," she confessed. Over time, she arrived in the city of Eindhoven intending to take a nursing course, where she met other Ethiopians who were already members of the local athletics club and who inspired her love for the sport.

Ad Peeters recalls Hassan during that initial stage as a shy girl who remained in the shadow of other runners of the same nationality who had already adapted to the demands of the sport. “She still didn’t have the necessary discipline to train, which was understandable, considering she was a 17-year-old girl who was alone and whose future was rather uncertain.”

The club worked on enhancing and perfecting her technique as an athlete. Her coach notes that back then, even though she was a natural runner, she needed to work on the coordination of her legs and arms. The support extended beyond sports: "We made sure she didn’t do the wrong things, either in training or in her personal life. We kept her safe, picked her up by car to go to training, and took her to competitions," Peeters comments.

With this support, Hassan's life improved rapidly. First, she obtained the passport that recognized her as a Dutch citizen, and then her coaches recognized her talent and potential, sending her to the elite Olympic training center in Papendal. What followed is well known: a rich history of medals. Since 2015, she has accumulated a dozen or so medals from various World and European Championships, as well as her success at the Tokyo Games.

The runner remains a member of Eindhoven Atletiek, although she currently resides in the United States, where she has been training tirelessly throughout the season to compete in peak physical condition at Paris 2024.