Yaseen Abdalla has never run a marathon, but he’s confident that he’ll be good at it when he competes at the Paris Olympics next month. The 23-year-old Sudanese-American track and field athlete is the only competitor that qualified for the men’s marathon without actually having run one before.
The Sudanese Olympic Committee selected Abdalla, the only track athlete, based on his performances in other events, like setting the Sudanese record in 3000m (7:42.23). “You can be super fast and try to make it last for a mile, or you can be strong and try to get the speed for a mile,” he explains in an interview with OkayAfrica. “I’ve always been stronger, and the marathon is the most strength-based event. I’m excited. It’ll be fun.”
Courtesy of Yaseen Abdalla.
“I remember the first two days I didn't even show up in cross country class, because I thought it was optional to show up, but it wasn’t.” - Yaseen Abdalla
Abdalla started running in 2016 during his high school sophomore year, because he needed to get a PE credit. “I did cross country and I was really bad. I didn’t improve at all in the first six months,” he says. “And then I did track and I was bad at the start of the season.” Until, at the end of his track semester, he broke five minutes in the mile (running 1,600 km in under five minutes).
“That’s a pretty big first step for any runner who's trying to run at a higher level,” says Abdalla. “Everyone remembers when they broke five. After that, I liked it. But I hated it at the time I had to do it, so if I didn’t have to, I would’ve quit.”
By the time he started going to college, Abdalla ran for ten months straight, not missing a single day. Breaking five in the mile qualified him to become part of a club, and he started training with fellow runners six days a week.
In 2021 he made a big jump and began dreaming of running in world championships. “You can only hope for so much when you're really bad,” he says. “But then you get better and you hope for more, and you get better, and you hope for even more. I just kept getting better, and now it’s 2024 and I’m running in the Olympics.”
Right before that season, Abdalla had gone to Kenya by himself, hoping to elevate his running to the next level. “I went to Iten to see if I can make a jump running or if I should pursue other things,” he says. “And that was my first mistake: I went alone.”
2021 was also an Olympic year; many Kenyan track athletes Abdalla had hoped to train with were training for the Olympics. He arrived right before the Kenyan team left, and found the ones that hadn’t made the team resetting. Not only did he end up running mostly alone, not talking to many other people throughout the summer, but when he returned, his workouts were unexpectedly bad for the first month.
“I thought I went to Kenya, spent all that time, did all that suffering, just to be worse,” he laughs. “But I made big jumps the following year, dropping the kind of time you dream about as a runner. I like to tell myself it was because of it, otherwise, it was a pointless trip.”
“A lot of time you get rewarded for experiences in some way or another,” he continues. “If you’re willing to make a sacrifice, it will either help you directly, like maybe I got better at running, or indirectly, like maybe I got tougher in a way. I think these things are always worth it.”
In the winter of 2022, Abdalla went on another trip, this time to Egypt and Sudan. “Kenya, the ideal place for running, was hard. Egypt, not the ideal place for running, was wonderful,” he says. “The training was incredible and the country was so flat. That’s my biggest thing, I hate hills.”
In Alexandria, he would run up and down the longest corniche in the world (a 20km long pedestrian promenade by the Mediterranean). In Hurghada by the Red Sea, he trained on highways and in parking lots. When he ran on Khartoum’s sandy pavements, he treated it like practice on the beach. When he returned to the U.S., he ran the number six time in collegiate history for the 3000m at the time.
Photo courtesy of Yaseen Abdalla.
Yaseen Abdalla has been running for seven years.
Abdalla gets to choose whether he wants to represent the U.S., where he was born, or Sudan, the country of his parents he grew up visiting. “My parents are very proud to be Sudanese,” he says. “I felt really good to give them pride and represent their country. It's a big deal for me. I love the country and before the war started, we’d go every other year. I like being able to represent a country that is more passionate about my representation than the U.S.”
Throughout the conversation, Abdalla keeps mentioning that he is not as naturally talented as other runners. He got to this level of running through determination and hard work - and the fact that he is not prone to injury. Right after saying that, he remembers a hamstring injury that had him limping in pain for twelve months; perhaps Abdalla’s strength is an unwavering mindset and ability to see the silver lining in most situations.
“I've been working this hard for six years, which is pretty hard to sustain,” he says. “It's very tiring at times, especially because the payoff doesn’t feel like I'm working this hard. Whereas someone a little bit more talented, or maybe just knew more about the sport earlier, can be lazier and still good. But I'm new to the sport, my parents didn't run, no one around me ran. I had to figure it out and just try as hard as I could.”
Abdalla trains during airport layovers or in the middle of the night while on holiday in Alexandria, he never skips. “I’m normal otherwise,” he laughs. “But I never struggled to find motivation for running. That’s my biggest advantage.” And it got him to the Olympics where he hopes to make it to the top 20.
“People say the first Olympics you learn, the second you compete,” he says. “But I’m definitely training hard and hoping to compete this time. I’m going to give it my all, and it’s going to be a good race. I’m going to represent as well as I can.”
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