Femke Bol smashes longest standing track record in athletics

Femke Bol shattered a 40-year-old indoor world record in the women’s 400 metres after covering the distance in a record time of 49.26 seconds at the Dutch Indoor Championships.

Femke Bol has made history! The 22-year-old athlete set a new indoor world record in the women’s 400 metres race at the Dutch Indoor Athletics Championships over the weekend. She got to the finish line in a record time of 49.26 seconds at Omnisport Apeldoorn, beating the previous world record of 49.59 seconds set by Jarmila Kratochvílová way back on March 7, 1982.

Having stood the test of time for an incredible 41 years, Kratochvílová’s world record was the longest standing record in all of track athletics until it was broken by Bol this weekend. It was also the second-oldest record across track and field, with Helena Fibingerová’s world record in the indoor shot put still standing from 1977.

Femke Bol was considered the favourite to win the race in front of her home crowd. However, not even in her wildest dreams could she have envisioned breaking the record in front of passionate supporters at the Dutch Indoor Championships on Sunday.

“It was because of all the fans here that I ran this record,” Bol told World Athletics. “Never have I ever seen that many people here.

“When I crossed the line, I knew that the record was mine because of the noise that the crowd made.

“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. I am glad that I did not just get the record, but that I improved it by a big margin,” she added.

Despite her young age, Bol has already achieved a lot in her career so far. She usually competes in both the 400m as well as 400m hurdles in the outdoor categories. Bol won the bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 400m hurdles race. She also ran a world indoor 500-meter best of 1:05.63 in Boston in her first race of this season. She also has a World Championships silver medal in the 400m hurdles in 2022.

Bol is the third-fastest woman in history in the 400m hurdles, behind only Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Dalilah Muhammad.

Moreover, the 22-year-old is the European outdoor and indoor champion in the 400m, and the current world indoor silver medallist across the same distance.