I predicted before the season Bol will run sub-51 for the 400 hurdles outdoors. She is going to have a jump similar to Dos Santos as she refines her technique. Her 400 abilities right now are obviously through the roof, and it’s just a matter of time before she destroys her hurdles PB. This is of course if she doesn’t focus more on the 400 which without Shaunae Miller-Uibo is pretty easy pickings (yes there’s Paulinho)
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
With McLaughlin splitting sub-48 and Athing Mu capable of the same (then add .6-.7 for an open time), you'd have a real barnburner of a world championship 400m if the three of them doubled.
Add in Miller-Uibo at the 2024 Olympics and you might have the best women's 400 of all time.
Crazy to think that one of those 3 women could run sub 49 and still not medal.
Full (longer) video with interview and victory lap. I like how smiles and celebrates rather than just sit down on middle of the track with a glum facial expression.
Femke Bol smashes the World Record indoor 400m record in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. The old record was in hands of Jarmila Kratochvílová with 49.59, run in ...
I'm bewildered by some of the immature comments on this thread. "Oh the track was banked" (WTF?!) "Oh she won't beat Syd" "oh she needs to run this against the big women" .
Like, really? Can't you just praise what was a great performance, one that took down an old, tough, WR? I mean, if you want to play games, we can point out that Felix ran the same time OUTdoors! This is worth sub 49 outdoors right now. Give it the respect it deserves.
Great run! Outdoors will be exciting this year.
But we cannot pretend that banked tracks do not affect performance. In the indoor 400 on a banked track, the runner in the outer lane starts on a hill and runs net downhill. They have to run back up the hill and down again at the next corner. The runner starting in the inside runs closer to a flat 400 with all tight turns. It's not even.
Here is another vid of a great 400, Kendall Ellis in 2018.
No one is saying that banked tracks don't affect performance. What I'm saying is that banked tracks are not new and plenty of other athletes over the decades have run on banked tracks and not broken this record. Bol has, that's why it's worth celebrating. You can't compare it to outdoors but you can compare this performance to every other athlete that has tried before her. Take a look at the all time list and see the names who haven't got near that record - Miller-Uibo, Richards-Ross, Mu, McLaughlin, Steiner. The top 10 is basically a list of Eastern Bloc dopers plus Bol, Miller-Uibo, and Nicola Sanders. It's an impressive record to take down
T&F needs more athletes with Bol's mind set. She runs full seasons with many races and seems to face anyone they put against her. And at the end of the outdoor season she is still running her best times and winning medals, I am an American and I am more of a fan or her than I am of SML
100%.
Jonathan Gault says journalists aren't supposed to root but on the MB I'm a fan and I 100% want her to win a world title and have predicted she will eventually win one. She LOVES the sport and is always competing. Unlike so many super talented female phenoms of late, success doesn't seemt to be a burden to her - it's in fact the opposite.
For everyone saying she automatically loses to Sydney, BOl is 1.04 seconds faster at 400 this year than last. If you subtract 1.04 seconds from her 400h pb of 52.03, you get 50.99 - a time that Sydney has only exceeded once in her life.
The 400h both on men's and women's side reminds me of men's tennis when Fed arrived. We thought - no one will ever be as good as this at tennis and then suddenly there were a coupld people basically just as good. Warholm and Syndey are amazing but they have to be on top of their game to win.
Update at 6:45 pm ET. My bad. She ran 49.44 last year outdoors so my post was incorrect. She's PRd by .18 outright. If you lower her 400h pb by .18, it goes down to 51.85, a time Sydney has beaten 5 times. In terms of indoor PBs, today's run was an improvement of 1.04 from last year indoors.
This post was edited by wejo 55 minutes after it was posted.
Jonathan Gault says journalists aren't supposed to root but on the MB I'm a fan and I 100% want her to win a world title and have predicted she will eventually win one. She LOVES the sport and is always competing. Unlike so many super talented female phenoms of late, success doesn't seemt to be a burden to her - it's in fact the opposite.
Don't worry. Gault is the journalist. You are the website host. Two different things.
For everyone saying she automatically loses to Sydney, BOl is 1.04 seconds faster at 400 this year than last. If you subtrack 1.04 seconds from her 400h pb of 52.03, you get 50.99 - a time that Sydney has only exceeded once in her life.
Your math is faulty.
Bol's outdoor PR in the 400, which she ran last year, is 49.44. There is no way she is in 49.44 minus 1.04 equals 48.39 outdoor shape right now.
Plus someone running a second faster in the flat 400 doesn't directly translate to that person running a second faster in the 400h.
Bol needs a ton of work on her steps and her hurdling technique if she is ever going to run sub 51. Just improving her flat speed won't be enough.
A top woman will run about .4 seconds faster outdoors than indoors.
Hmmm. Women's college records -
DI - Outdoors 49.47, indoors 50.34
D2 - Outdoors 50.93 indoors 51.78
D3 - Outdoors 52.81, indoors 53.70
NAIA - Outdoors 52.27, indoors 53.02
That pretty much matches the IAAF scoring tables. The gap is larger for senior men and women, which (as you write) partially owes to the fact that the top runners have not been at peak form while running indoors, or maybe even haven't done it all. But at the collegiate level, they train to win indoors just as they train to win outdoors. So the argument that the top runners don't show up, or are not in peak form, seems unlikely.
At any rate, we will see soon enough how this translates to outdoors.
T&F needs more athletes with Bol's mind set. She runs full seasons with many races and seems to face anyone they put against her. And at the end of the outdoor season she is still running her best times and winning medals, I am an American and I am more of a fan or her than I am of SML
100%.
Jonathan Gault says journalists aren't supposed to root but on the MB I'm a fan and I 100% want her to win a world title and have predicted she will eventually win one. She LOVES the sport and is always competing. Unlike so many super talented female phenoms of late, success doesn't seemt to be a burden to her - it's in fact the opposite.
For everyone saying she automatically loses to Sydney, BOl is 1.04 seconds faster at 400 this year than last. If you subtrack 1.04 seconds from her 400h pb of 52.03, you get 50.99 - a time that Sydney has only exceeded once in her life.
The 400h both on men's and women's side reminds me of men's tennis when Fed arrived. We thought - no one will ever be as good as this at tennis and then suddenly there were a coupld people basically just as good. Warholm and Syndey are amazing but they have to be on top of their game to win.
I like this take. I’m always a fan of athletes racing more. In particular, the 400 meters is under 1:00 of racing. It doesn’t take that much out of you compared to like a 10K. I also think it helps with race tactics and finding where your limits are.
Side note, why was Bryce Hoppel good in 2019? Why is he not good now? Answer: he raced a lot in 2019.
Abby Steiner continues to improve because she’s racing a lot. Other athletes should take note.
Jakob, Femke, and Laura Muir are three world-class athletes who just show up and run, again and again, and they have all developed very well over the years. I don't suppose that will stop people from talking about athletes hurt themselves by overracing, but it at least should give them pause.
Jonathan Gault says journalists aren't supposed to root but on the MB I'm a fan and I 100% want her to win a world title and have predicted she will eventually win one. She LOVES the sport and is always competing. Unlike so many super talented female phenoms of late, success doesn't seemt to be a burden to her - it's in fact the opposite.
For everyone saying she automatically loses to Sydney, BOl is 1.04 seconds faster at 400 this year than last. If you subtrack 1.04 seconds from her 400h pb of 52.03, you get 50.99 - a time that Sydney has only exceeded once in her life.
The 400h both on men's and women's side reminds me of men's tennis when Fed arrived. We thought - no one will ever be as good as this at tennis and then suddenly there were a coupld people basically just as good. Warholm and Syndey are amazing but they have to be on top of their game to win.
I like this take. I’m always a fan of athletes racing more. In particular, the 400 meters is under 1:00 of racing. It doesn’t take that much out of you compared to like a 10K. I also think it helps with race tactics and finding where your limits are.
Side note, why was Bryce Hoppel good in 2019? Why is he not good now? Answer: he raced a lot in 2019.
Abby Steiner continues to improve because she’s racing a lot. Other athletes should take note.
Last year too much racing. I was shocked by the total....what was it, sixty ? Imo that's a problem with thé collegiate schedule.
Incredible! I was impressed by her 500m WR a few weeks ago (that I had bought tickets for but got the date wrong because of a massive brain fart) and wonder if that overdistance really helped with the last 100m of the 400m WR. With her height and the fact that she's only 22, I'm excited to see what she's capable of.
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