In perhaps the most dramatic and toughest Olympic marathon of all time, Sifan Hassan the Netherlands officially became an athlete for eternity. With a run-up in the last 250 meters, Hassan withstood a push from Tigst Assefa from Ethiopia and achieved one of the most remarkable triple victories in the history of long-distance running.

Within a week, she won bronze medals in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races on the track, then sprinted to the gold medal in the marathon on Sunday morning, less than 26 hours after taking the bronze medal in the 10,000-meter race.

The great cliche of marathon running – “great” because it’s so true – is that “20 miles is half the battle.” In so many races, the first leg of the marathon is transportation, and then the real race begins, and the energy required to run the last 10 kilometers is roughly equivalent to the energy expended by a fit long-distance runner to get to that point.

Or at least it feels that way, although 10 kilometers or 6.2 miles is probably the easiest training run and a distance that the fastest long-distance runners in the world can cover in their sleep.

And that’s exactly what was on display on the streets of Paris and its western suburbs on Sunday, as the 20-mile marathon became a contest between a collection of marathon running kings.