Sifan Hassan Aims for Second World Record Performance of 2019

By Adam Kopet

Sifan Hassan will take to the streets of Berlin Sunday with her eyes set on a world record. Competing in the Berlin Half Marathon, Hassan is aiming to better the world record mark of 1:04:51 set in 2017 by Kenya's Joyciline Jepkosgei, according to race organizers.

Hassan, of The Netherlands, is best known for her exploits on the track, where she owns personal bests of 3:56.05 for 1,500 meters, 4:14.71 for the mile, 8:27.50 for 3,000 meters and 14:22.34 for 5,000 meters. The latter is a European record.

Despite Hassan's ability on the track, she has shown recent strength on the roads. After a long outdoor campaign last year, Hassan entered the Copenhagen Half Marathon. She won in a European record 1:05:15. That is 24 seconds off the world record in an event she spent two weeks training for after her final track race of the year. Her time ranks her eighth on the world all-time performer list.

More recently, and in Hassan's only race of 2019, she set the road 5K world record in the Monaco Herculis 5K, running 14:44.

Hassan had intended to compete at last week's IAAF World Cross Country Championships, but she withdrew before the Championships to focus on Berlin. The difficulty of the Aarhus, Denmark course would have been made it hard to recover and still achieve her world record goals with eight days separating the two races.

The women's course record at the Berlin Half Marathon stands at 1:07:16 from 2006. The second fastest woman in the field is Veronica Nyaruai of Kenya, who owns a 1:07:58 personal best.