Dutch athlete runs 47.93 split to overtake world record-holders United States as Britain earn their first athletics medal of the 2024 Paris Games
Femke Bol’s anchor leg in the mixed 4x400m relay at the Paris Olympics is likely to be played and re-played many times in coming years. The tall Dutch athlete was a scintillating sight as she took the Netherlands from a fighting fourth and up into first place. Her split? An amazing 47.93.
A total of 32 sprinters from eight teams lined up for an event that made its Olympic debut in Tokyo three years ago. But afterwards everyone was talking about just one athlete.
The mouth waters at the prospect of a showdown with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in her specialist 400m hurdles event later in these Games.
As rain began to pour in the Stade de France on Saturday evening, Bol had a huge amount of work to do as she took the baton. But she ran down firstly Naomi van Den Broeck of Belgium, then Amber Anning of Great Britain and Northern Ireland before finally overhauling Kaylyn Brown of the United States.
Dutch gold medallists (Getty)
Just 24 hours earlier the Americans had set a world record of 3:07.41 but this time they ran slightly slower as the Netherlands clocked 3:07.43 ahead of the United States’ 3:07.74 with the Brits smashing their national record by well over two seconds with 3:08.01.
Bol even had a metre or two to spare at the end as she punched the air crossing the line. Turning to her team-mates – Eugene Omalla, Lieke Klaver and Isaya Klein Ikkink – they set off on a lap of honour that coincided with Ryan Crouser taking the applause of the crowd for his shot put win.
On her fast split, Bol said: “I hoped to run that fast some time but in the relay you never look too much at split times. It’s more about putting it together as a team and technically you have to race it well.
“I just went for it. We just wanted a medal this time, we didn’t think it would be gold, just a medal. Well, we got gold and are the Olympic champions. It is absolutely crazy for a small country like ours.”
And on that final mesmerising home straight effort, she added: ““I thought ‘just keep going, keep going’. That and my team-mates cheering me. And the atmosphere in this stadium is absolutely incredible. It’s crazy.”
British bronze medallists (Getty)
Sam Reardon got the Brits off to a great start with Laviai Nielsen keeping the team in contention on the second leg before Alex Haydock-Wilson ran an aggressive third…
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