Team GB runner Rose Harvey says she completed Olympic marathon with broken leg

Team GB runner Rose Harvey completed the women’s marathon at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games despite having a broken leg, she said on social media.

In an Instagram post, which shows Harvey on crutches in St. Pancras International train station in London, the 31-year-old explained that a few weeks before the August 11 race, she had felt some “tightness in her hip.”

“My incredible team and I put in so much work to make the start line fit and healthy and we were all optimistic that with a bit of race day adrenaline, I would be able to run the race I knew I had in me,” Harvey wrote.

However, after a couple of miles, Harvey “quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen.” She describes the next 24 miles as a “painful battle.”

The British runner eventually finished the race 78th overall with a time of 2:51:03, just over 28 minutes behind gold medalist Sifan Hassan.

And according to the GB runner, scans after the race revealed Harvey had suffered a stress fracture to her femur.

“In any other race, I would have stopped and there were so many moments when I thought I couldn’t take another step. The downhills were hell,” Harvey said.

“But despite that most of my race goals having slipped away, there was still a tiny part of my Olympic dream that I could hang onto – and that was finishing the Olympic marathon. I couldn’t give up.

“I kept telling myself to smile, soak up the energy of the incredible crowds and just put one foot in front of the other. It was heartbreaking.”

Harvey only seriously took up running during the Covid-19 lockdown after being made redundant from her job as a corporate lawyer in the music industry. She was spotted running in Battersea Park in London in 2020 by coach Phil Kissi and quickly saw rapid improvements.

She had been selected to run for Team GB at the Paris Games after completing the 2023 Chicago Marathon in a time of 2:23:21, just 26 seconds off Hassan’s Olympic record time in Paris.

Despite having an injury-affected time in Paris, participating in the Olympics is what Harvey says she’ll take away from the French capital.

“But being part of the Olympics is something I’ll never forget and being able to share the race with so many of my amazing friends and family meant the world to me,” she wrote.

“I can’t thank my team enough for getting me to this point – becoming an Olympian. It’s been a wild ride and I’m grateful for it all. This is just another chapter in the story.”