2023-07-23 16:38:00
Femke Bol prepares for the Athletics World Championships. At the Diamond League meeting in London, the Dutchwoman runs the European record over 400 meters hurdles. This makes her the clear favorite for gold. The three-time European champion from Munich is still missing such a title.
If there are many abbreviations next to track and field results, this is usually a sign that something extraordinary has happened. Femke Bol runs so fast at the Diamond League meeting in London that there are five such abbreviations next to her name. In 51.45 seconds, the Dutchwoman dominated the race over 400 meters hurdles. PB, WJB, MR, DLR, ER: Personal best, world best of the year, meeting record, Diamond League record, European record. Unsurprisingly, Bol, whose running style still seems light and springy even at maximum effort, clearly outperforms the competition.
“Incredible, I still can’t believe it,” says the 23-year-old after the race: “I felt so strong when I crossed the last hurdle.” By 2.3 seconds, the 23-year-old outperformed the seven other long-sprinters, including the Shamier Little, fifth on the all-time list of the best over 400 meters hurdles. This time the American is third by a wide margin in 53.76 seconds, while Jamaican Janieve Russell is just a hundredth of a second faster.
The two Ukrainians Viktoriya Tkachuk and Anna Ryzhykova, who won silver and bronze at the European Championships last year, are also left behind – even then behind Bol, the outstanding athlete of those atmospheric competitions in Munich’s Olympic Stadium. In the Bavarian capital, Bol had won three gold medals, and she was unbeatable in the flat 400 meters and in the 4×400 meter relay.
With her performance in London, Bol not only underlines her outstanding form but also her claim to win her first world title at the World Championships in Budapest (19th to 27th August). Because the only woman who was ever faster than the Dutchwoman over 400 meters hurdles will most likely not compete over this distance in Hungary.
Nobody else has run under 53 seconds in 2023
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who won her Olympic gold in 2021 and her World Championship gold in 2022 with world records, is preferring the 400 meters without hurdles this season so far. At the US Championships, she secured a ticket for Budapest via the stadium round – as the defending champion, however, she enjoys the luxury of being eligible to start on her regular route without any prior performance. However, the “Los Angeles Times” quoted her coach Bob Kersee a few days ago as saying that the World Cup schedule hardly made a double start possible. If McLaughlin-Levrone does not defend her title, Bol would be the clear favorite with her performance from London.
The Dutchwoman is already looking at Budapest after her record run, but remained rather general. “I hope we can put on a great race and a great show at the World Championships,” says Bol, who also hopes “that I’ll be in even better shape then than I am now.” Since the 2021 Olympics, she has dreamed of “a 51 time,” says Bol, who set the European record of 52.03 seconds that is still valid today and won the bronze medal.
With that performance in the deserted Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, the Dutchwoman entered the world stage, on which she now visibly feels comfortable. In 2022 she won silver at the World Championships in Eugene, now she travels to the world title fights as number one in the world annual best list. Bol has competed in the 400m hurdles five times this year – and with all five times she would lead the ranking. Nobody but her has run under 53 seconds at all this season.
Bol, together with her trainer Laurent Meuwly, manages to improve on the already exceptionally high level. In the past indoor season, for example, the 23-year-old first improved the world record over the rarely run 500 meters before she broke one of the oldest athletics world records over 400 meters. In 49.26 seconds, she undercut the record set in spring 1982 by Jarmila Kratochvilova from Czechoslovakia at the Dutch championships over the two indoor laps by 0.33 seconds.
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