An Olympic marathon runner for Team GB not only finished Sunday’s race, he completed it in under three hours due to a stress fracture he suffered during the race that left him “in agony”.
Rose Harvey, 31, from Evesham, Worcestershire, finished 78th on the final day of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris in a time of 2:51:03, despite knowing she was injured going into the race. Now, in an interview, she revealed BBCHarvey revealed that he had been feeling tightness in his hip for three weeks leading up to the race and that it had not improved despite medical treatment.
But with no replacement on his team, Harvey decided to run the marathon, even though his doctors had warned him that running could worsen his injury. And while he felt positive on the start line, he realised he was in for a painful ordeal after just two miles.
“It was really tough,” Harvey recalled. “The hills didn't help at all, the descents were just torture and it just got worse and worse. I knew halfway through it was going to be incredibly painful.”
But despite suffering a stress fracture in her femur, she managed to cross the finish line and wasn't even in last place. She managed to pass Shantoshi Shrestha from Nepal and Kinzang Lhamo from Bhutan, who came in last place, while 11 other runners didn't finish the race.
Meanwhile, Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands took the gold medal in an Olympic record time of 2:22:55. Even more heartbreakingly, Harvey qualified for the 2023 Olympics by running 2:23:21 at the Chicago Marathon, just 26 seconds slower than Hassan’s finish time and the fifth fastest time for a marathon run by a British woman.
Harvey attributes his ability to maintain momentum, despite the pain, to his “Olympic energy.” “Any other race, I would have stopped, because I couldn’t run the way I normally can,” he admitted. “And the pain was really bad, but I just had to get to the finish line, I had to run the Olympic marathon.”
Now, despite being unable to bear weight on her leg and having to use crutches, she is looking forward to getting married in three weeks. She says the thought of seeing her fiancé, Charlie Thuillier, kept her going until the finish line. “Every mile, I just thought, 'OK, run to Charlie, run to the next time I get to see him,'” she said.
“My biggest challenge is hopefully getting off the crutches by the wedding but we'll see. At this rate it could be Charlie walking down the aisle,” he joked. But Thuillier wasn't worried. He added: “Even if Rosie's on crutches, in a wheelchair, on a scooter, it doesn't matter as long as Rosie's there.”