On a gloriously sunny Tuesday evening training session at the Eindhoven Athletics Club, the young hopefuls are putting themselves through their paces and dreaming of emulating their most famous member – two-time Olympic champion Sifan Hassan.
It was on these tracks that more than a decade ago, Hassan, a young asylum seeker from Ethiopia, embarked on a journey that would make history at the Tokyo Olympics and make her a top contender for a medal in Paris.
“We immediately saw that she was a talented athlete. Even a blind horse could see that she would be a good runner,” said Ad Peeters, president of Eindhoven Atletiek’s coaching staff.
But her first performance came purely by chance and under somewhat farcical circumstances, explained Peeters, also a middle-distance runner who competed with Hassan in the early days.
She tagged along with a friend representing the club at a nearby 1000m race – and decided to join.
“But 1000 meters is two and a half laps on the track. They didn’t realize that, so they actually tried to finish at the starting line,” Peeters, 58, laughed.
“So we got to know her. We could already see at that time that she was a talented athlete, but she wasn’t really a runner back then,” he told AFP.
One of Hassan’s favorite slogans, taken from the Koran, is “with hardship comes ease,” and her formative years were anything but easy.
Born in Adama, southeast of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, she was raised on a farm by her mother and grandmother. She left for the Netherlands at 15 — she never explained why.
She was first placed in a center for minor asylum seekers in Zuidlaren in the northern Netherlands. She told De Volkskrant daily that she cried there every day.
“I was like a flower that has no sun,” she said.
She eventually came to Eindhoven to do a nursing course and fit in with other Ethiopians, some of whom were members of the local athletics club.
it took some time for her to “chill out,” as Peeters puts it, describing her as a “shy girl” in the shadow of some of the more established Ethiopian runners.
she herself recalled training so hard “my leg bled”, but Peeters tells a slightly different story.
I don’t actually think she was lazy, but it wasn’t always easy to get her to practice on time,” he recalled with a smile.
She didn’t have the discipline to practice yet. But I also don’t want to underestimate what it’s like to be here as a young person, as a 17-year-old girl, to be lonely, uncertain about your future,” Peeters said.
the club worked on her technique. She was clearly a “natural” runner, but her “legs and arms went all over the place,” the coach said.
Peeters feels that the club’s major role in her success came both off the track and on it – helping her navigate life as a solo teenage asylum seeker.
We made sure she didn’t do bad things either in training or in her personal life. We kept her safe, picked her up in the car for training, took her to the races,” he said.
We basically kept her in one piece.”
it came quickly as did the dutch passport. The Dutch athletics coaches recognized her talent and sent her to the elite Olympic training center in Papendal.
the rest is history: at the postponed 2021 Tokyo Olympics, she became the first ever female athlete to win medals (two gold, one bronze) in the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m.
Paris is attempting an even tougher combination of 5000m, 10,000m and marathon – the first big test coming in the 5000m final on Monday.
Hassan’s success, her ties to Eindhoven remained strong, Peeters said. The club helped her financially at the beginning of her career and she often returned to training sessions.
she remains a member of the club despite living and training in the United States, and Peeters collects mail from her fans.
stopped training, he said, but admitted the club would gather at the bar to cheer on their famous graduate in Paris. We don’t stop training for football, but yes, for Sifo.”
