Femke Bol

Bol focused on the 400 metres sprint in 2015 and started winning Dutch competitions in her age categories.[11] She won five national youth titles in the 400 metres (out- and indoor) between 2015 and 2017, and four junior titles in 2018 and 2019 (400 m out-, indoor and hurdles).[5]

At the international competitions, Bol progressed steadily. At age 15, she did not advance from the heats in the 400 m at the 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival. Two years later, she reached the semi-finals in the event at the 2017 European Under-20 Championships.

In 2019, her last junior year, she won two gold medals at the Dutch U20 championships (400 m indoors and 400 m hurdles), and claimed her first national senior title (indoor 400 m). In June, in the third hurdles race of her life, Bol broke Dutch U20/U23 records and achieved World Championship qualifying standard when winning a meet in Geneva with a time of 55.94 s.[12] In July, she confirmed herself as the continent's best under-20 runner in her, since that year, signature event of the 400 m hurdles, with a gold medal at the European U20 Championships. At the Doha World Championships, the 19-year-old reached the semi-finals with a new personal best of 55.32 s in the heats, becoming the second-fastest under-20 European woman in history.[13][14] She also helped her national women's team place seventh in the 4x400 m relay.[5] Since November 2019, she has been training and living in the Dutch national sports centre Papendal near Arnhem, coached by Switzerland's Laurent Meuwly.[11]

In July, Bol broke by almost a second the 400 m hurdles national record of 54.62 s set by Ester Goossens in 1998, racing in Papendal.[15][1] First, running in the rain, she took almost a second off her 2019 best with a time of 54.47 s, which could not be ratified as only one other athlete competed. Two weeks later, she achieved 53.79 seconds, the fourth-fastest European under-23 time in history.[16] With this mark, she would have placed fourth at the previous year's World Championships, missing a bronze medal by just five hundredths of a second.

During this pandemic season, Bol won all her following races over the barriers: two Diamond League events staged in 2020 as one-off exhibition competitions, and three Continental Tour events. First she ran away from a European-class field in Székesfehérvár, Hungary on 19 August, to repeat this achievement four days later at the Stockholm Bauhaus-galan in winning her first Diamond race. In September, she won in Ostrava (300m hurdles), Bellinzona, and Rome. She reduced her open 400 metres pre-2020 best by 1.85 s down to 51.13 s.[5]

In what was very successful season, the 21-year-old improved gradually her personal bests, setting 11 national records with five more as a member of relay teams.[8] Bol set also Diamond League record, three circuit's meet records, and five meet records in the World Athletics' Indoor Tour and Continental Tour events.

She started her unbeaten indoor campaign on 30 January, smashing her previous best in the 400 metres by more than 1.5 s to break a Dutch record in a time of 50.96 s at the Vienna Indoor Track & Field meet in Austria. Previous record was set a few minutes earlier by Lieke Klaver, who in turn broke the Ester Goossens' mark which had stood at 51.82 since 1998.[17] Bol then won all her following seven races at the distance in four events, improving in every final. Competing in the World Indoor Tour, she powered to meet records of 50.81 in Metz and 50.66 in Toruń, then clocked 50.64 at the Dutch Indoor Championships, and finally lowered her record to 50.63 seconds when winning during the European Indoor Championships in Toruń, Poland.[18][19] She took there her second gold medal anchoring women's 4×400 m relay team to a championship record time of 3:27.15.[20][7] Her individual mark made her the then-fastest European woman since 2009.[21]

Outdoors Bol started by competing at the World Athletics Relays to set a 400 m national record of 50.56 s on 29 May at the IFAM meeting in Oordegem. She then started improving her own Dutch 400 m hurdles record when winning Diamond League meetings, beginning with a time of 53.44 s on 10 June in Florence. At the time it was also European U23 record, breaking a 37-year-old mark.[22] On 19 June, she reverted back to the open 400m during European Team Championships in Romania and bettered her record with a 50.37 performance.[23] On 1 July in Oslo, she lowered her hurdles record in a time of 53.33 s to further take almost a second off with a Diamond League record of 52.37 s on 4 July in Stockholm, where she beat Shamier Little by 0.02 s. This fast race was only the second in history, after the 2017 USATF Championships, in which three women recorded times below 53 seconds as third-placed Anna Ryzhykova set the Ukrainian record of 52.96.[24] Bol, meanwhile, became the fourth fastest woman of all time with the sixth-fastest result ever, missing the European record by just 0.03 s.[25][26] On 6 July, she won the event at the Continental Tour meet in Székesfehérvár with a time of 52.81 s, edging out Little in 52.85 s again.[27] Having won Diamond race in Gateshead, England on 13 July, she extended her unbeaten streak in her specialist event to 6 races in the 2021 season and 12 straight races in total. It was her third consecutive victory over the US rival, but this time Bol dominated, running away by about 10 metres.[28]

Bol running in semi-final of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games during heavy rain

At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in July and August 2021, Bol ran six 400m races with hurdles or flat, including three under 50 seconds relay legs. In what was the speediest women's 400m hurdles race in history, she bettered an individual Dutch record for the 11th time that year to break a European and Olympic record, finishing third in a time of 52.03 seconds. She lost only to her main rivals in the world, the winner Sydney McLaughlin (51.46 – world record) and the runner-up Dalilah Muhammad (51.58 – inside previous world record).[29][6] Bol broke, however, the 2003 Yuliya Pechonkina's European mark of 52.34 s (world record until 2019) and the 2008 Melaine Walker's Olympic record of 52.64 s, becoming the third-fastest woman of all time at the event with the fourth-fastest result ever.[25][30] Her result would have been also a world record about a month earlier, before 27 June, when McLaughlin clocked 51.90 s at the US Olympic trials. It was the first ever Olympic medal for the Netherlands at the event.[31] Before Bol's individual final on 4 August, she helped mixed 4x400m relay team set national record in the final with her 49.74 s split, and later she anchored women's 4x400 relay to consecutive Dutch records in the heat and in the final, clocking splits of 49.14 s and 48.97 s respectively.[32]

After the Games, in August and September, she continued her Diamond League domination over the barriers, winning Lausanne Athletissima and Zürich Weltklasse final with meet records of 53.05 and 52.80 seconds respectively.[33][34] In Lausanne she finished clear ahead of Shamier Little and Dalilah Muhammad, while in Zürich Bol held off Little again.[35][36] Having skipped USA's Prefontaine Classic in Eugene and ran 400m flat at the Meeting de Paris (50.59, 4th),[5] she remained unbeaten in the Diamond race with six wins out of six races. While still in Switzerland, on 14 September, she ended her breakthrough season with yet another meet record at the Galà dei Castelli in Bellinzona, staying unbeaten in 11 from her 12 hurdles races of 2021.[37] Bol achieved in that season four marks under 53 seconds, and was voted European Athletics Female Rising Star.[5][38]

Femke Bol opened her indoor season returning to Metz (FR), where she bested her previous meeting record in her specialty distance (50.72), and also won her 200 metres heat with a new PB (23.37). Then she returned in turn to Toruń (PL) to beat her local meet record again (50.64). On 27 February, at the Dutch Indoor Championships, she improved her own Dutch record with a 50.30 seconds clocking which was at the time faster than her outdoor best, and putting her 12th on the world indoor all-time list. Only two-time Olympic champion, Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, had run faster indoors since 2007.[39][40] At the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade about three weeks later, Bol won the silver medal, after she fell at the finish line during the semi-finals, in a time of 50.57 s behind Miller-Uibo who ran 50.31.[41] Bol also anchored Dutch women's 4x400 relay to silver thanks to her "brilliant"[42] closing surge from fourth into second, with the fastest split of the race of 50.26.

• Diamond League champion 400 m hurdles: 2021[34]

400 metres hurdles wins, other events specified in parenthesis

• 2020 (2): Stockholm Bauhaus-Galan (54.68), Rome Golden Gala (53.90)
• 2021 (6): Rome Golden Gala in Florence (53.44 NR), Oslo Bislett Games (53.33 NR), Stockholm (52.37 MR DLR NR), Gateshead British Grand Prix (53.24), Lausanne Athletissima (53.05 MR), Zürich Weltklasse (52.80 MR)

• World Continental Tour

400 metres hurdles wins, other events specified in parenthesis

• 2020 [3]: Székesfehérvár Memorial (54.67), Bellinzona Galà dei Castelli (54.33), Ostrava Golden Spike (300 mH, 38.55 MR)
• 2021 (3): Hengelo FBK Games (54.33 MR), Székesfehérvár (52.81 MR), Bellinzona (54.01 MR)

• World Indoor Tour

400 metres indoors wins, other events specified in parenthesis

• 2021 (2): Metz Meeting Moselle Athlelor (50.81 MR NR), Toruń Copernicus Cup (50.66 MR NR)
• 2022 (2): Metz (50.72 MR), Toruń (50.64 MR)

Dutch under-20 records.[43]

Year	200 m	Notes	400 m	Notes	400 m indoor	Notes	400 m hurdles	Notes
2015	–		56.14		–		–	(age 15)
2016	25.56		54.95		55.95 i		–
2017	25.18		54.39		54.47 i		–
2018	25.09		54.33		54.58 i		–
2019	23.79		52.98	NU20R	53.24 i	NU20R	55.32	NU20R
2020	23.40		51.13		52.47 i		53.79	NR
2021	23.16		50.37	NR	50.63 i	NR	52.03	EU23R AR
2022 temp.					50.30 i	NR