Team GB star Rose Harvey was staggeringly able to complete the women's marathon at the Paris Olympics in under three hours - despite sustaining a broken leg during the race.
The 31-year-old demonstrated an unfathomable degree of resilience as she fought through the pain barrier to cross the finish line in the French capital . Having felt pain developing after two hours of proceedings, she rallied to secure 78th place with a time of 2:51:03 before finding out that she had fractured her femur.
The runner's appearance at the Games this summer came after she took up running during the Covid-19 pandemic following the loss of her job as a lawyer. From there, she pursed the sport professionally from 2022 and was the fastest woman at the London Marathon that year, while also finishing the Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:23.21 in 2023 - the fifth quickest marathon time of any British woman in history.
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Having been nursing a hip problem coming into the Games this summer, Harvey felt the issue flare up during her run in Paris as she fell behind the leading pack. Fighting through the pain, she was buoyed by the support of the crowds but admitted to the BBC that the experience "was really tough".
"The hills didn't help at all, the downhills were just agony and it just got worse and worse," she recalled as she looked back over an afternoon she will never forget. "At the halfway mark I knew it was going to be incredibly painful." The Olympic energy was kind of what kept me going to that finish line.
Ultimately, the allure of the Games spurred her on to ensure that she completed her run, as she vowed: "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."
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The Worcestershire runner also acknowledged that she kept her fiancée Charlie Thuillier at the front of her thoughts as she battled until the end in Paris. With their wedding set for just three weeks after the Olympics , she said: "Every mile, I just thought 'right, just run to 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."
Speaking proudly about his love's efforts, Thuillier later 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."
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," while her partner 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."
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