Olympic Runner Rose Harvey Reveals She Finished Paris Race With a Broken Leg

Rose Harvey can do it with a broken leg. 

The British marathon runner, who finished in 78th place in the 2024 Olympic marathon with a time of a little over two hours and 50 minutes, shared that she finished her race despite suffering a broken bone early on. 

“It was really tough,” Rose—who has previously completed a marathon in just two hours and 22 minutes—admitted to the BBC in an interview published Aug. 13. “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.”

The 31-year-old explained that she had been dealing with hip pain leading up to the Paris Games, and the strain her latest race put on the injury caused her to sustain a stress fracture in her femur. 

Still, Rose—a financial lawyer before becoming a professional marathoner—was determined to finish the race as there was no reserve who could take her spot in the race.

“The Olympic energy was kind of what kept me going to that finish line,” she explained. “Any other race I would have stopped, because I wasn't able to run like I normally can—and the pain was really bad, but I just had to get to that finish line, I had to do the Olympic marathon.”

And while Rose—who is now sporting crutches following her injury—recalled hearing the “incredible” crowds as she made her way to finish line,  she had a special person motivating her to run through the pain: her fiancé Charlie Thuillier.

"Every mile, I just thought, 'Right, just run to Charlie, run to when I can see him next,’” she gushed. “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.”

Now, Rose’s next challenge is walking down the aisle at her wedding. But when she joked that her fiancé may have to deal with her crutches, Charlie had the best response. 

“Rosie is on crutches, if she’s in a wheelchair, if she’s on a scooter,” he posited. “It doesn’t matter as long as Rosie is there.”