Tokyo (AFP)

Even if it is not officially confirmed, the Dutch Sifan Hassan is aiming for an unprecedented and puzzling treble in the longest and middle distance at the Tokyo Olympics, which would add to her record already provided but also to the doubts that have accompanied her since the suspension of his ex-trainer Alberto Salazar.

Tripling 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m, competing in six races in nine days, 24,500 high-intensity meters in total to beat the best runners in the world.

It sounds crazy.

But not for Sifan Hassan.

The 28-year-old Dutchwoman, who competes in the 5,000m final on Monday, gives off an incredible impression of ease, has a formidable finish, is able to disgust her competitors on the train.

She had brilliantly achieved the 1,500m and 10,000m double at the Doha Worlds in 2019.

She seems so superior that she also carries doubt on her thin shoulders, especially since her former American trainer Alberto Salazar, guru of the Oregon Project supported by the firm Nike, was suspended for "incitement" to doping in 2019.

His protégés marched on the 2019 Worlds. The group was dissolved by Nike and Salazar is now suspended for life for "emotional and sexual abuse", a decision of the "US Center for SafeSport" ) which he can appeal.

None of Salazar's athletes have ever tested positive for a banned substance.

- "Tokyo will be easy" -

“I never said I would do all three,” Hassan said on Friday about the treble after an easy qualification for the 5,000m final, although it was registered in all three races.

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The athlete seems to hesitate for the 1,500 m, a race which has three laps (series, semi-final, final).

"If I run the 1,500 m final, the 10,000 (Saturday August 7) ​​will be difficult because I will have run the day before, with a doping control, the responses to the media, I am worried about all that", she said before Games.

"If I settle for the 5,000 and 10,000 and lose, that will just mean that the others will be better than me."

Despite the expectations weighing on her and the media attention, Hassan tries to put things into perspective.

"The biggest pressure moment of my life was in Doha, and I managed to get out of it, so Tokyo will be easy," she announced, referring to questions relating to Salazar in Qatar.

"Sport has changed a lot of things in my life, made me discover the world and showed me that it doesn't matter where you come from or who you are", explains the Ethiopian-born athlete. .

This is where his sporting adventure began.

"Every day at school in Ethiopia there was a niche dedicated to sport, I was never tired, I played volleyball."

"In the Netherlands then a teacher offered me to run, I went to his club, I did a 1,500m in 4:20. A few days later, I ran a half marathon in 1:17. .. "

These "beginner" times to make a good number of good level amateur runners pale then led him to the 10,000m world record on June 6 at home (29: 06.82), beaten a few days later by the Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey, her great rival over the distance.

She must meet her in Tokyo, at the heart of her insane challenge.

© 2021 AFP