Team GB star Rose Harvey broke her LEG during the Olympic marathon in Paris but still finished the race in under three hours – and now she faces a race against time to get married!
Team GB star Rose Harvey completed the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics in under three hours despite breaking her leg during the race.
The 31-year-old, who is now on crutches, completed the race in a time of 2:51:03.
The British runner, who set her personal marathon record of 2:23:21 in Chicago (US) last year, will marry her fiancé Charlie Thuillier in three weeks.
The Olympic athlete started the race with some pain in her hip, but after just a few kilometers she realized it was going to be “incredibly painful.”
Harvey didn’t give up, finished the race and was later diagnosed with a stress fracture in her femur.
The British Olympian posted a photo of herself returning from Paris on crutches, saying she was left “heartbroken” by the experience but that despite the “incredible pain” she was still determined to “put one foot in front of the other” to complete the race.
“A few miles in I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. The next 24 miles were a painful struggle,” the 31-year-old wrote on her Instagram.
“It turned out I had a stress fracture in my femur,” added Harvey, a former corporate lawyer.
‘In any other race I would have stopped and there were so many moments when I thought I couldn’t take another step. The descents were hell.
‘But even though most of my racing goals had slipped away, there was still one small piece of my Olympic dream that I could hold on to – and that was completing the Olympic marathon. I couldn’t give up. I kept telling myself to smile, to soak up the energy of the incredible crowd and just put one foot in front of the other.’
“It was heartbreaking,” she added. “But being a part of the Olympics is something I will never forget and being able to share the race with so many of my amazing friends and family meant the world to me.”
Encouraged by the support of her future husband and ice cream company founder Charlie Thuillier, who stepped down as head of Oppo to help her with the training
Harvey, pictured here after a workout, worked such long hours as a financial lawyer that she barely had time to exercise
Harvey also confirmed to the British press agency that she is currently unable to put any weight on her leg.
Harvey was being treated for her hip injury before the Paris Marathon and doctors had told her that participating in the race could be risky.
“The Olympic energy was what kept me going all the way to the finish line,” the 31-year-old long-distance runner told the BBCShe added that thinking about her fiancé, Charlie, also pushed her forward.
‘Every mile I thought, “Okay, just run to Charlie, run to the next time I see him.”‘
With just three weeks to go until their wedding, the former corporate lawyer admits she has a new challenge to overcome.
“My biggest challenge is hopefully getting off the crutches for the wedding, but we’ll see,” she told the BBC“If this continues, it could be Charlie walking down the aisle!”
Thuillier is also the founder of trendy ice cream brand Oppo, known for producing tasty low-calorie desserts. He stepped down from his position at the company to help his fiancée train.
Harvey’s story is remarkable. Just four years ago, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the 31-year-old financial lawyer was laid off.
She was living in Clapham, South London at the time and was given three months garden leave. She decided to train for a triathlon.
Rose Harvey, 31, was an amateur runner four years ago and jogged to work every day
Rose will represent Team GB in the women’s marathon event on Sunday, just four years after she was sacked from a hedge fund
“I went from working hours to literally having nothing to do, all that time at home, and I realized that work had become my entire life,” she said.
“It made me want to do something really radical. I had this amazing opportunity and I wanted to do something cool with it.”
She would later return to work as a consultant, but her fast race times were soon noticed by many in the running industry, leading Harvey to sign a sponsorship deal with sports brand PUMA.
“I hadn’t thought about going to the next Olympics. I felt a bit new to the sport. It’s quite ruthless because you’re only as good as your last race,” she had previously told The Times.
Her meteoric rise to the 2024 Paris Olympics has been an inspiring journey, with Harvey also becoming the fifth-fastest British female marathoner of all time, following her time at the Chicago Marathon after turning professional in 2022.
“This was far from the Olympics I dreamed of, but still an experience of a lifetime,” she added on Instagram.