Femke Bol shatters 41-year-old world record at Dutch Indoor Championships
Dutch running sensation Femke Bol has broken a 41-year-old world record on the second day of the Dutch Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn.
A week after breaking the 50-second mark in the 400m with a 49.9 in Metz, Bol took a whopping seven tenths off that time, to clock a 49.26 and lower the old record set by Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova in March 1982.
"When I crossed the line I knew that the record was mine, because of the noise that the crowd made," Bol said after the race.
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Femke Bol celebrating her World Record. Getty
"It was because of all the fans here that I ran this record," Bol said. "Never have I ever seen that many people here."
Remarkably, the time is two-tenths better than her PB outdoor time.
"I was hoping to run the record, of course, but in life you hope for a lot of things and most of the time it does not happen," she told World Athletics.
"I am glad that I did not just get the record, but that I improved it by a big margin.
"I wanted this record so badly and I knew I had to make sure to be first going into the final lap. I could really power through between 200m and 300m, and that made the difference."
The 22-year-old won bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 400 hurdles. She also ran a world indoor 500m best of 1:05.63 in Boston in her first race of this season.
