Olympic Marathoner Broke Leg at Start of Paris Olympics Race but Still Ran

Team GB’s Rose Harvey was hit with every runner’s worst fear during the women’s marathon at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The 31-year-old suffered a broken leg during the race on Sunday, Aug. 11, in an agonizing experience that she struggled to get through before finishing in 78th place.

“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.”

Harvey explained in an Instagram post on Tuesday, Aug. 13, that she fractured her femur in the race as she shared a photo of her on crutches.

She wrote that she felt “tightness” in her hip two weeks before the Games and committed to staying in the race after working hard in training and feeling “optimistic … I would be able to run the race I knew I had in me.”

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Two miles into the marathon, however, she “quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen,” describing the next 24 miles as “a painful battle.”

Harvey told the BBC that her fiancé, Charlie Thuillier, encouraged her to keep going as he cheered her on at the sidelines.

“Every mile, I just thought, ‘Right, just run to Charlie; run to when I can see him next,’ ” she recalled. “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.”

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

Harvey pushed through the “agony” at a finishing time of 2:51:03 in 78th place, ahead of two others.

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In a better condition, she might have won the marathon. In 2023, Harvey was selected for the games after achieving a running time of 2:23:21 in Chicago — a mere 26 seconds behind gold winner of the women’s marathon, Sifan Hassan of The Netherlands.

On Instagram, the British athlete said the experience was “heartbreaking,” adding, “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.”

Harvey started running professionally in 2022. By the following year, she was the fastest British woman to compete in the London Marathon, per the outlet. 

Her main focus now is healing up in time for her wedding in three weeks.

“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,” she added.