With her eyes set on the future but her head full of thoughts of what lies behind it, Femke Bol has created a unique gold medal in athletics. Haunted by the past, she will start the final sprint this Saturday afternoon at the packed Stade de France as the last runner in the mixed 4×400-metre relay. And how.
Impressive? Yes. Unknown? Also. Unimaginable? Certainly. Bol takes over in fourth place from Isaya Klein Ikkink, after Lieke Klaver and Eugene Omalla also completed that position in the eight-nation field. He first overtakes the Belgian opponent, then the British opponent and then quickly passes the American within sight of the finish line and his waiting teammates.
The joy is great, as is the disbelief. Bol’s split time is 47.93 seconds, a time normally reserved for men. The final time of 3.07.43 is just two hundredths of a second above the world record, set the day before by the American team.
Absolutely strange
“I thought: if I am close enough in the last fifty metres,” Bol explains a little later in the catacombs of the huge stadium, “I just have to let out the anger inside me and give it my all.” Then, laughing: “And now we are Olympic champions, which is absolutely strange for a country as small as ours.”
This anger is mainly about last year’s World Championships in Budapest, when Bol fell just before the finish in gold position. But also about all those moments when she was not quite right. Never before has the national quartet climbed to the top step of a gallows of honour. The composition varies, especially on the men’s side. The two women are always Bol and Klaver in the final, but sometimes they are saved in the preliminary rounds. For example, Cathelijn Peeters showed up on Friday instead of the female lead.
After her bronze at the last tournament, the European Championships in Rome, Bol spoke of a love-hate relationship “between us and the mixed” – in which, she says, hatred predominated. That is why she had doubts about whether she wanted to take part in this event in Paris. After all, her individual programme starts the morning after the final. “We have disappointed many times in the mixed and I am closer to gold than usual in my 400m hurdles, so that is exciting. But hey, we will not give up.”
The ultimate reward
She understands that this time it worked. In Budapest the goal was to win with a world record. “Today we thought: every medal is an Olympic medal and we are going to enjoy running this final. That was our focus, not the time. That is simply the best thing.”
For national coach Laurent Meuwly, this Olympic title is the ultimate reward for his work at the Papendal national sports centre. “If you want to beat countries like the United States and Jamaica in the sprint events, your chances will increase enormously if you concentrate on the relay.”
He introduced a relay culture to the Netherlands and thus turned it into a 400-meter country. When the Swiss started in 2019, there were exactly three athletes in this speciality.
Hard to digest
There has previously been worldwide success among men (Olympic silver in Tokyo) and women (world champion in Budapest), but so far it has not been achieved in the event that epitomises Meuwly’s vision par excellence. “I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world where 90 per cent of relay athletes, men and women, train together all year round.”
That’s why he considers the bad luck of recent years, because it certainly hasn’t always been good, “hard to digest.” At the Tokyo Games – fourth three years ago – two countries participated that should actually have been disqualified. At the World Championships in Eugene, second in 2022, the Dominican Republic, later winner, fielded an athlete who has now been suspended.
Of course, an exceptional talent like Bol should not be underestimated in the importance of the golden final on Saturday evening. Meuwly: “But it is especially unique to have an athlete with so many individual opportunities who is committed to the relay.”
Hunt, hunt, hunt
Bol (24) had previously discussed all possible scenarios with the coach and psychologist, thinking of Budapest, where the race surprised her and she lost her balance. During these 400 meters she says to herself: ‘you must be walking uncomfortably’. In addition, it is “hunt, hunt, hunt” and “the last four meters there was mainly disbelief.”
“I am very proud of us. It is a great team effort,” he says modestly. However, this golden race will always be linked to his sensational final lap.
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