Team GB runner finished marathon despite breaking leg

A Team GB marathon runner completed the gruelling event at the Paris Olympics despite sustaining a broken leg during Sunday’s race.

Rose Harvey, from Evesham, Worcestershire, told the BBC she refused to give up after training hard and coming into the Games in the form of her life.

The 31-year-old, who is currently on crutches, now says she faces a new challenge – of how to get married in three weeks.

Harvey battled through the “agony” to finish 78th in a time of 2:51:03 in 24C heat. The Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan took gold in an Olympic record time of 2:22:55.

The British athlete said it became clear to her from about two miles in that her hip – which had begun feeling tight three weeks previously – was going to be “really, pretty painful”.

She ended up crossing the line with a stress fracture of her femur.

“It was really tough,” Harvey told the BBC.

“The hills didn’t help at all, the downhills were just agony and it just got worse and worse. At the halfway mark I knew it was going to be incredibly painful.”

Despite treatment for her hip before the Olympics, the injury did not appear to be getting any better.

Doctors and physios told Harvey that running the marathon would make it worse – but there was a chance that she could get through it and do her training justice.

With no Team GB reserve available to fill her space, Harvey decided to attempt the event and felt positive on the start line.

Six miles in, though, she was falling behind the pack and soon running on her own.

But Harvey, who was selected after running 2:23:21 in Chicago last year – just 26 seconds shy of Hassan’s finishing time in Paris – fought through the pain to complete the event ahead of two other runners. Eleven more did not finish.

“The Olympic energy was kind of what kept me going to that finish line,” she said.

“Any other race I would have stopped, because I wasn’t able to run like I normally can… and the pain was really bad, but I just had to get to that finish line, I had to do the Olympic marathon.”

Harvey says she now cannot put any weight through her leg at all so is not sure how she finished. But the athlete highlighted gaining “grit and resilience” from her training, having friends and family in France and the “incredible crowds” as helping her.

She added: “Every mile, I just thought ‘right, just run to (her fiance) Charlie, run to when I can see him next’.

“I think the other big thing is I knew deep down if I stopped I would always wonder ‘what if I could’ve just run an extra mile?’ And I wouldn’t be able to live with that.”

Charlie, who watched the race, said: “I know just how much work she’s put into this and then for her not to execute exactly what she wanted to do was difficult to watch and difficult to see.

“But Rose also demonstrated exactly why she was picked, showing true Olympic spirit, resolve, determination, grit, huge amounts of resilience.”

The British athlete’s route to becoming an Olympian was unconventional, as she discovered her passion for running after losing her job as a lawyer during the first Covid lockdown in early 2020.

She said she would previously run to and from her office in London to avoid commuting on busy Tube trains, but her long working hours prevented her from devoting much time to the sport.

After being made redundant at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, she wanted something to keep her busy – and going for a run was one of the few activities still permitted.

“It just kind of snowballed from there, I absolutely loved it,” she explained in June.

Ms Harvey went professional in 2022 and she was the fastest British woman at the London Marathon that year.

Her running time of 2:23.21 in Chicago last year was the fifth fastest-ever marathon time for a British woman.

But her attention is now turning to getting married.

Harvey explained: “My big challenge is to hopefully be off crutches for the wedding but we will see. It might be Charlie walking down the aisle at this rate.”

Charlie – who she met running – added: “If Rosie is on crutches, if she’s in a wheelchair, if she’s on a scooter, it doesn’t matter as long as Rosie is there.”

Additional reporting by Kathryn Armstrong