Although she recently celebrated her 23rd birthday, Femke Bol has already set the bar very high. The smiling Dutch superstar made history last year with a triple at the European Championships in Munich and will be the world record holder after the 2023 indoor season. We can't wait to see what she has in store for us in Budapest.
Why is it good for a 400m sprinter to do judo before athletics? Learning to tolerate pain, for example. It was particularly true in Femke Bol’s case, as she broke her arm twice at the beginning of her martial art career. As a result, she learned how to fall. She practised judo for another year, but she didn't really like it and according to her she wasn't very good at it. Athletics fans can't be thankful enough for Femke changing sports at the age of eight.
Under the influence of her brother, she first got into cross country running, and around 2014 Werner Andrea discovered her talent for longer sprints. Luckily for her, because Bol prefers the pain-inducing lactic sessions that could lead to improvement.
“You can think that you can’t and then you can again,” she said. “It’s really nice when you see yourself that mentally and physically you break those limits for yourself and go to a higher level and then also see that in my results - that’s amazing”, she told the International Olympic Committee website about these training sessions.
She started to focus on the 400m hurdles very early, at the age of 15. The successes came already in her youth and junior years by winning Dutch age group championship titles. At international level, we first saw her name when she won the 2019 European U20 Championships. Later, at the World Championships in Doha she set a new Dutch junior record of 55.32 in the preliminaries.
Her progress was not interrupted by the coronavirus epidemic either: in 2021, at the age of 21, she won two gold medals at the European Indoor Championships. In Torun, she first won the 400m with a Dutch record of 50.63 then set a new record with the 4x400 relay team as well. With Bol’s help, who was in top form, the team recently improved this record to 3:25.66. It means that the Netherlands will set the stage for a medal at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest.
At the Tokyo Olympics, she ran a new European record in the 400m hurdles, making her not only an Olympic bronze medallist but also the third fastest ever. She has already managed to catch one of her two American rivals in 2022, former world record holder Dalilah Muhammad, to move up one place on the podium. She had no chance against Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who ran a 50.68 in the Hayward Field, though.
A month after Oregon she competed in three events at the Munich European Championships and bagged the gold in all of them. She became the first female to achieve a triple in the 400m, winning the gold in the flat, hurdles and relay at the same major event.
As McLaughlin-Levrone does not compete often in Europe - she was back on the old continent in August 2022 at the István Gyulai Memorial after nearly three years –, Bol was left without a rival in the Diamond League in 2021 and 2022. With her run in Stockholm last year, she also holds the fastest time in the series’ history (52.27).
She concluded her impressive indoor season with the fastest 500m ever (1:05.63) and by breaking one of the oldest world records in athletics’ history at the Dutch national championships. Bol improved Czechoslovakia's Jarmila Kratochvilová 400m record, set 41 years ago, by 33 hundredths of a second.
Meanwhile, she is still considered a hurdler. According to experts, the difference between her indoor and outdoor times could be as much as a second, so her 49.26 run in Apeldoorn could set her up for even greater results. Moreover, the Bambi-nicknamed star is still only 23!
If her run of success continues, she might be offered a sponsorship deal by the chocolate producer and confectionery company Ferrero. For three years now, Bol and her training partner Lieke Klaver have celebrated their victories with a Kinder Bueno. Not a bad motivation before a season in which she can expect more amazing results.
Given her form on the flat, the question is whether she can compete in both the 400 m hurdles and the 400 m flat at the World Championships in Budapest. Her rival, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone have not yet decided either her programme at the top event of the year. If they want to do a double, they may have a scheduling problem: on Monday evening, 21 August, there will be heats in the hurdles and semi-finals in the flat - however, there will be two hours between the two races, which could still give them the opportunity to compete in both.
- Sunday 20 August, 9:35 - 400 metres, heats
- Monday 21 August, 18:50 - 400 m hurdles, heats
- Monday 21 August, 21:10 - 400 metres, semi-finals
- Tuesday 22 August, 20:25 - 400 m hurdles, semi-finals
- Wednesday, 23 August, 21:35 - 400 metres, FINAL
- Thursday, 24 August, 21:50 - 400 m hurdles, FINAL
In addition, the 4x400m relays will be held on the final weekend of the World Championships, where both athletes may compete.
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