Bol 22.87/49.96 in Metz

Last week wasn't a surprise but this one is truly astonishing. Many of the best 400 women ever have never come close to threatening 50 indoors. Until today I was thinking she would likely drop her personal best to something like 50.12 in the national final next Sunday.

It's also the first result that legitimately calls into question whether Bol is prioritizing the correct event outdoors. Even if the transition to 14 strides works perfectly she won't be within a half second of McLaughlin, and given the weakness of Bol's right lead there's always a small chance of clipping a barrier and crashing out of the medals altogether. I saw quotes from Bol yesterday in a European Athletics article in which she conceded she doesn't know how many hurdles she'll be able to go 14 before switching back to 15. She said it would be after 3, 5, or 7. Sydney already takes 14 through 7.

There are lots of old videos of Bol on YouTube, especially on the Hortas Sotra Track and Field channel. It's difficult to believe this is the same girl I watched 5 or 6 years ago running monotone 54s year after year. Twice consecutively she was last in the indoor 400 final and the next year she finished next to last. At that point I wasn't sure she'd ever be on the national team, let alone become an international superstar. When she first showed up at Papendal many of the established runners had no idea who she was. In fact, there's a related clip in one of the Zusjes De Witte videos. They split up into squads for relay practice. When the members of the teams were called out, one guy asked, "Who is Femke?"

Here's the video for her 400m. She sure does smack herself around pretty good in her prerace routine. If track doesn't work out maybe she can try slap fighting.

This is a great post!

What is considered ideal pacing for indoor 400? Her first lap was sub-24, second one just over 26. Seems like a huge difference if you factor in that in the first lap she had to accelerate too.

she is surprisingly slow. I thought she could run 22 low outdoors conversion.

She ran the 200m one hour after the 49.96

As I suspected, this 400 result scores higher on the IAAF points calculator than the world record at 500 last week in Boston. Today was 1240 points compared to 1234 at New Balance.

Bol would have needed to drop .22 last week for the same 1240. And I guarantee she was capable of that. It was a world record but kind of an underachieving world record, by her current ability level.

Her camp was overly scared of the extra 100 meters, plus they had no way to know that Bol had improved her speed so much since last fall. I posted on another site last week that Bol should have tried to go through 400 in Boston at 51.2 instead of the actual 51.41, let alone the targeted 51.80. Given today's performance I think the optimum last week would have been 51.0 or 51.1.

Bol did say last week in the Citius Mag video that 400 was now going to seem easier for her, after already running the extra distance. She'll be hard pressed to match this time at either nationals next week or European Indoors next month, because in both instances she'll likely have her teammate Lieke Klaver ahead of her at the junction, forcing Bol to circle in lane 2 early during the second lap.

Klaver has too much pride, shoulder width, and natural speed to allow Bol ahead of her at 200, no matter the separate heat times today.

I agree. An hour between events shouldn't affect her 200m time that much. I ran my 200m PR an hour after a leg on a 4x400m.

Not to those who have her progression the last few years. She has been running low 23s for 200 meters indoor and out, which has made her 400 meters time even more impressive.

Bol and Klaver are both great sprinters. Looking forward to more from these two.