One of the best things about FEMKE BOL is.......

Your English is horrendous.

While there may be truth to this, I’m kind of impressed by his hyping up Kaczmarek’s improvement a year+ ago, since she did go on to win 3 DLs and a Worlds silver medal last summer.

With regard to looks and voice you are way, way off, and who knows about whether she or her fellow Dutch are clean, but I love the fact that she competes a lot and has become great at the 400m as well as the hurdles. It would be fantastic if Sydney had the same love for track and field and competed, but she is gorgeous and incredibly good when she runs.

She made 90,000 that we know about. There are sponsor bonuses as well. I'm sure her shoe company had some very lucrative bonuses in there.

I always assumed she learned English by watching Mickey Mouse, which could explain how her voice sounds when speaking English.

Sha’carri has much more of a following.

I find myself agreeing to two statements. Bol races and doesn't back down.

Femke is NOT completely fluent in English, she had to ask for clarification on some phrase from an interviewer over the weekend. But she is freaking cute. And very possibly the number one 400m flat AND hurdler in the world. No one has a clue what level Sydney M is running at right now. Her WR was over 18 months ago.

..........her nice long legs and beautiful butt. In addition, she also runs a very good 400m. Would love to see her try the 800m.

Let me respond to both, but primarily the first quote.

I like Bol quite a bit. She is my second favorite behind Kipyegon. But I've also followed indoor 400s since the early '80s at Sunkist meets at the Sports Arena. Everything changes depending on who leads at 200. Only simpletons don't understand that. Klaver was already inferior to Bol in 2020. Bol was the defending Dutch indoor 400 champion. Bol was heavily favored in the final. But Klaver beat her to the break and Bol never got around her, despite repeated attempts. Bol was very frustrated afterwards, saying silver was not what she came for.

In 2022 world indoors Bol lost the world indoor semifinal to Stephanie McPherson when she lost the break. Bol lost the final to Miller-Uibo when she lost the break. She is hardly immune to it playing out that way again. A one-second theoretical edge is nullified in a hurry if you suddenly are trailing on an indoor oval with 200 to go.

Not many 400 specialists can lead Bol at 200. Kaczmarek was one of them last year. She didn't even compete at European indoors. So it's not like that prediction was wrong. The matchup never happened. Admittedly I look for runners who can lead Bol at 200. I prefer bumpy confrontational indoor 400s instead of a cotillion around the track.

Here is a new Dutch video with Bol. She admits at 1:40 that Alexis Holmes was always in her head and she changed her strategy in the relay final because she knew who was behind her. Bol expresses frustration that she had to face Holmes in every 400 round at Glasgow. It's silly to rely on the result only and claim Holmes was never a threat. I thought seeding would be based on season bests, per norm. In that case, Holmes would always have drawn a great lane and had a chance to lead Bol at 200. Instead World Athletics changed the criteria at the last minute. Holmes only had a decent lane in the opening heat. I've already posted a related video in another thread. Bol was scared Holmes would try to grab the lead. Instead she backed off, to Bol's relief. Since Holmes had a poor world ranking she got stuck in lane 2 for the semifinal and lane 3 for the final. That situational influence meant Holmes would have to sacrifice her own chances if she tried to rush for the lead:

Here is the video below of Klaver defeating Bol in 2020. The camera trains on Bol at start because she is defending champion and heavy favorite. Obviously both are much faster now. But the dynamics of indoor 400 don't go away. If somebody is fast enough to lead you at 200 they are good enough to give you fits for the remainder. The real time betting odds change dramatically.

BTW, two years ago Bol and Miller-Uibo were considered co-favorites in Belgrade. Bol had the world leading time. Miller-Uibo hadn't raced indoors in years and emphasized she didn't like indoors because of sharp turns. Miller-Uibo entered only to please her mother. I posted on several sites that Miller-Uibo would win because she would make sure to lead at 200.

Maybe we're not going back that far.

I prefer someone relatable like Bol 100% over the weird unapproachability of Sydney or even the antics and bizarre behavior of someone like Sha'Carri. But that does not mean they are not al great athletes. But the secrecy and almost hiding and competing almost never does not make an athlete popular or particularly likeable. Bol clearly has the edge on this. And with her progression I am almost certain she'd beat Sydney in the Olympics. Def. in the 400 flat and maybe in the hurdles.

Bol rives you can run a full indoor season, race often outdoors and keep improving and winning medals. Oh and have fun doing it

The best thing about her is that she shows up often and competes. She seems to really enjoy it.

Couple of comments:

You cannot compare the Femke Bol vs her competitors in 2022 indoors to the one in 2024. Back then, she was on a par with McPherson and Miller-Uibo on times. Both Bol & SMU were 50.3 women, whilst McPherson was a 50.7 woman. In addition, SMU was much, much faster than Bol over 200m then, whilst McPherson was coming off an excellent 2021 season and was marginally faster than Bol over 200m.

Fast forward to 2024 and Bol has run 22.6 over 200m indoors....less than 1 hour after a sub 50 400m. She's ranked 9th faster in the World over 200m. AFTER RUNNING A 400M! Alexis Holmes didn't run a 200m indoors this winter but her PB is way outside 23 secs from last season. There was no way she was going to beat Bol to the break and hold her off, it would have been totally detrimental to her own race.

On Kaczmarek, it's a similar story. In 2023 Bol ran 22.8 indoors over 200m, whilst Kaczmarek ran 23.3. Again, that's half a second difference, no way was the Pole going to beat Bol to the break and run her own optimal race, it would have been suicide for her. (The only reason Kaczmarek beat Klaver to the break in their clash in Lievin was because Klaver opened way to slow, and then stupidly tried to overtake before the last bend.)

So I just don't get why people think anyone like a Holmes or a Kaczmarek is going to beat Bol to the break and hang on for the win, when none of them are faster than her over 200m, let alone have her speed endurance over longer distances. And if they did beat her to the break, they would just end up dying and she would glide past.

Finally, Bol explicitly says she ran tactically in order to have something left at the finish. So even with a 50.5 pace being well within her capabilities (amazing in itself) she still had the ability to surge in the last 10m, whilst Holmes couldn't, and we can clearly see this on video. It's only natural that her fall is still in her head when she ran the 4x4 here. The difference now is she knows this and has learned from it.