Olympic Champion Sifan Hassan shares her journey to glory at QF’s Education City Speaker Series

Doha, Qatar: Olympic gold medalist Sifan Hassan has shared her inspiring running journey from migrating from Ethiopia to the Netherlands aged 15, to...

Doha, Qatar: Olympic gold medalist Sifan Hassan has shared her inspiring running journey – from migrating from Ethiopia to the Netherlands aged 15, to winning three medals at the recent Paris 2024 Olympic Games – during a talk at Qatar Foundation.

Hassan was the latest guest of the Education City Speaker Series, Qatar Foundation’s (QF) platform for dialogue, with the discussion at the Education City Stadium exploring topics such as training, recovery, nutrition, faith, and her future goals.

“I started running as a child. In Ethiopia, running is part of the culture – everybody runs,” Hassan said.

“I was born in the city, but I grew up in a village, and we would run to school. But I really like to sleep in the morning. My mom would always say, ‘you have to wake up’, but I’d say, ‘please, let me sleep’. But at school, when you were late, you got into trouble. And I always got up late, so I had to run really hard to get to class on time, every day.”

Reflecting on her move from Ethiopia, Hassan shared how challenging it was initially. She described the move to the Netherlands as difficult due to the cultural differences, and arriving in the winter made it even harder as she had spent so much time outdoors in Ethiopia. But, as she explained in her talk, she decided to pursue running as it was free, and this became her outlet.