How Femke Bol is taking challenges in her stride

Not only did the 400m hurdler re-learn her main event to become a world champion, she also managed to bounce back from major disappointment in what was a golden summer

Femke Bol is a multi-tasker. Whether it’s breaking barriers over the flat 400m, clearing barriers over the 400m hurdles or being the star member of her nation’s 4x400m relay squad, the AW International Female Athlete of the Year has shown herself to be only too willing to carry the burden of a substantial workload. It was an approach which saw her win world medals both indoors and out last year, as well as a memorable golden European hat-trick. Yet still something didn’t feel quite right. Heading into last winter, another job was added to the 23-year-old’s to do list – to re-learn her favourite event.

“She had run her best time in Tokyo,” says Laurent Meuwly, Bol’s coach and mentor referring to the run of 52.03 which took her to Olympic 400m hurdles bronze in an epic 2021 final. “We could say: ‘Okay, maybe that track was really fast and maybe we couldn’t find the same conditions in 2022’ but last year she was better physically but couldn’t improve her time. We both realised we were at the end of this concept with the 15 steps.”

The 15 steps of which the Swiss speaks is the stride pattern Bol takes between each barrier. It was something to which she had become very much accustomed since arriving on the global scene, but the glass ceiling had been hit.

The new plan? Run differently. Take 14 strides between the first seven hurdles and then maximise Bol’s considerable finishing speed by reverting to 15 between the final three.

“Progressively we pushed her stride a bit more and changed to having a more cruising way of running the first 200m, with longer strides,” says Meuwly. “It’s about a 12cm difference in stride length.

“And then to change after seven hurdles to go to 15 – that was something completely different to what she has been used to. But, very quickly, she realised in training that this was the direction to go in.”

That technical work had been the main focus of sessions at the Dutch Olympic training centre in Papendal, to such an extent that the indoor season had been little more than afterthought.

Yet Bol is, first and foremost a competitor, so she decided to race early in the year. The results were spectacular. Her speed endurance was showcased beautifully in Boston at the beginning of February when she set a…