Coach Tim Rowberry explains how Eliud Kipchoge’s advice helped Sifan Hassan pull off her 2024 Olympic triple

Sifan Hassan’s coach, Tim Rowberry, has opened up about how advice from marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge helped her prepare for the marathon at the 2024 Olympics, where she ultimately triumphed.

Rowberry is best known for coaching the Netherlands' Hassan to two of the greatest feats in Olympic track and field history: a bronze in the 1500m and golds in both the 5000m and 10,000m at Tokyo 2020, as well as bronze in the 5000m and 10,000m and gold in the marathon at Paris 2024.

Hassan clinched bronze in both the 5000m and 10,000m — events won by Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet — before completing her remarkable achievement with a gold in the marathon, running effortlessly as if she had not been involved in two grueling races just days earlier.

Preparing for such a monumental task requires a sound strategy, and according to Rowberry, Hassan was clear about which event she wanted to succeed in the most, based on her preparation.

“Her main focus was on the marathon, above all else. When she had concerns in training, it was always about her marathon preparation,” Rowberry told Letsrun.

“The training was much more marathon-specific. The philosophy we adopted was something we learned the previous year. I was combining long marathon runs with the extreme training typically done for the 5k, 10k, and even the 1500m. If I were to explain the balance, it was an extreme approach. You do long runs for the marathon, but then the speed workouts don’t feel like they’re related to the marathon. It was a unique combination of marathon training and track training.”

Mysterious Ksh25,000 headband Eliud Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan wore during Olympics

However, it was not easy, and they had to lean on the expertise of those who had been in similar situations before.

Rowberry explains that two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge was a valuable resource. This was made easier by the fact that they are both represented by the same agency, Global Sports Communications, which has its headquarters in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

“She would do marathon-distance long runs, but not all the time,” Rowberry continued. “When we were first figuring out marathon training, we reached out to Kipchoge and other athletes at Global Sports Communications. We’d ask, ‘What are these guys doing?’ And people were surprisingly helpful. They would tell us, ‘You have to do runs that are at least marathon distance, sometimes over.’ This doesn’t happen all the time, but we would occasionally do 30k or 35k long runs, and sometimes go up to marathon distance.”

“We wouldn’t push those long runs more than once a month, though. Doing really long runs too often wouldn’t work with the rest of the training.”

World Record for Ruth Chepngetich in Chicago

Hassan clocked 2:22:55 to win the gold, just ahead of Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa (2:22:58), who took silver. Kenya’s Hellen Obiri finished third with a time of 2:23:10, edging out compatriot Hellen Lokedi (2:23:14) by just four seconds to complete the podium.

It seems that Kipchoge, although unknowingly, played a part in denying his own country a gold medal.