The 30-year-old Ethiopian-born Dutch runner spent some time yesterday trying to explain how she had produced one of the great marathon victories of all time, against a field of proven champions, on the rainswept roads of London.  And to be honest no one was any the wiser.

"I'm so grateful to be in London and win," she said. "I can't believe it. I was going to stop at 25km."

Asked when she believed she could actually win, Hassan replied: "When I crossed the line?

"No way before.

"When I woke up this morning I was telling myself I was stupid to run a marathon, and what is wrong with me.

"I was so scared, I even cried.

"Doing Ramadan made me not have confidence as I couldn't practise drinking.

"But my coaches told me, ‘you know how to drink!’

"I will never forget this.

"The crowd made me think I was really popular!”

In September 2020 Hassan earned another career honour in contrasting circumstances as she set a women’s world hour record in an all but empty King Badouin Stadium in Brussels, with spectators barred because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of the genuine clamour of human voices, this effort took place to a background of recorded crowd noise. The effect, in an arena void of people, was discomposing.

Before the race Hassan commented upon the Wavelight technology that was going to make a debut in the Stadium, offering pacing lights along the rim of the track.

"Personally I am very happy to run with it because I am always unprepared!" she said.  "It is good for the athlete to know where they are.

"Sometimes the coach tells you you are running this time, you are close to a record. But with the crowd it is sometimes hard to hear. In Monaco last year I didn’t know if I was close to the world mile record or not. I tried to do my best and suddenly got it."

The next day this "always unprepared" athlete outran Brigid Kosgei, the world marathon record holder, to set a new mark of 18,930 metres.

Both women were involved in yesterday’s 43rd London Marathon, but sadly Kosgei, who had spoken beforehand of her recent hamstring problems, dropped out after running for only three minutes.

At the 19 kilometres point Hassan looked about to join her as, grimacing, she stopped running on several occasions to stretch her left leg, with her hand signalling discomfort in her hip.

Hassan had spoken beforehand of how she was not thinking of running another marathon at this summer’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest but would be concentrating on the 5,000 and 10,000 metres there. And indeed, she said she was currently better prepared for those events than the marathon.

So at this point any sensible athlete would have been thinking it was best to "listen to their body" and drop out, in order not to screw up their chances in the summer.

But Hassan is not your regular sensible athlete. Instead, having fallen almost 30 seconds adrift of a lead group that included Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Peres Jepchirchir and Ethiopia’s defending champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw, she made her way back to them.

Too quickly, some commentators said, implying she would pay for it when the real push for the finish came.

But when push came to sprint it was Hassan who sailed, unbelievably, disbelievingly, clear…

One can only imagine what the experienced runners in her wake must have been feeling.

Even during the pre-event press conference Hassan’s habitual manner, speaking very rapidly, turning her head away from the microphone in her excitement to the point where one could not hear what she was saying, contrasted with the careful statements of her closest rivals.

This is her normal manner. Quite often she will contradict herself in a single sentence. Ideas seem to fly in and fly out, her line of thought zig-zagging just as she did on the course as she tried to work out how to get across to the drinks stations, once almost getting run over by one of the camera-carrying motorbikes.

At one point, having scrambled over to a drinks station which was some distance away from the blue line being followed by the lead group, she actually offered her drink around to the others. 

To be honest, I think she freaked them all out.

Strange thing, but I am currently re-reading one of my favourite books - Gamesmanship, by Stephen Potter, whose guiding principle is expressed thus: The Art Of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating.

Potter writes: "The great second axiom of gamesmanship is now worded as follows: THE FIRST MUSCLE STIFFENED (in his opponent by the gamesman) IS THE FIRST POINT GAINED."

One of the standard pre-game suggestions is "the flurry", the object of which is "to create a state of anxiety, to build up an atmosphere of muddled fluster."

Eating chicken nuggets in the athletes’ bus en route to an Olympic 100m final, as Usain Bolt reportedly did at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, is something Potter would have recognised and admired.

But he would surely have approved too the effect begun by Hassan at the press conference and continued during the race. It seemed obvious that Hassan was about to drop out. But she didn’t. It seemed obvious that she would pay for making up the gap when she eventually appeared back in the lead group. But she didn’t.

I’m not saying Hassan set out to mess with the minds of her more experienced rivals. How could I? But I am saying she messed with the minds of her more experience rivals.

Before the race, characteristically, she said this: "So I’m very nervous, but at the same time I’m very curious and I think I’m going to be better in the next marathon."

Hassan will probably be proved correct in that - and who knows how fast she may run in an autumn race? But on the next occasion the other marathon runners will have a better idea of what to expect. In that respect, as well as in terms of its memorable racing, London 2023 was a glorious one-off…