Lebanese Olympian Chirine Njeim completed yesterday the Women’s Marathon race with a time of 2h 51m 8s and ranked 109th out of 157 candidates. By doing so, Chirine joins a very exclusive club and becomes the only woman to compete in the Marathon distance for Lebanon and more importantly the 28th woman to ever represent her country in the Summer and Winter Olympics. Only 132 athletes (105 men, 27 women) have participated in both the Winter and Summer Games and Chirine is the only athlete in the world to have competed in alpine skiing and a track event at the Olympics. Chirine is also the first Lebanese female athlete to achieve the automatic qualifier in a track and field event.

Chirine was aiming for a 2 hours and 40 minutes finish but the scorching heat in Brazil made the conditions more difficult for her and the other competitors. Nevertheless, I think what she has done is quite an amazing achievement and she has made us all proud!