World and European 400m hurdles champion cruises to victory indoors in Metz in her first 800m race.
Femke Bol’s much-anticipated 800m debut ended with a win in a Dutch indoor record of 1:59.07 in Metz, France, on Sunday (Feb 8) but her middle-distance running ability is unlikely to have filled Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson or world champion Lilian Odira with fear. Not yet anyway.
Bol, the reigning world and European 400m hurdles champion, won the race relatively comfortably and dipped inside two minutes – the benchmark of 800m racing for women. But she seemed a little reluctant to follow pacemaker Anna Gryc through 400m in 56.66 and looked in mild danger of being caught in the closing stages by Valentina Rosamilia and Lore Hoffman, although the Swiss duo eventually finished in 1:59.90 and 1:59.91 respectively.
As holder of the world indoor 400m record with 49.17, Bol must have felt easy going through halfway in 57 seconds. She looked relaxed as well. You would not expect her to jump into an absolutely top-class race on her debut either. So it will be intriguing to see how she fares against stronger opposition in coming weeks. Certainly, her 1:59.07 was nowhere near the same standard as her sub-50-second ability over 400m indoors.
Gabriela Gajanová was due to be in this race in Metz but was a late withdrawal after catching a cold. It was a shame as Gajanová holds the Slovak record with 1:58.22 outdoors and would have provided a real test. What’s more, Gajanová was runner-up to Hodgkinson at the 2024 European Championships in Rome although the Briton was under-par that day with a slight illness of her own.
READ MORE: Hurdles great Harald Schmid on Bol’s 800m ‘adventure’
Georgia Hunter Bell will be another athlete who is unlikely to be fazed by Bol’s debut. Hunter Bell won silver behind Odira – and narrowly ahead of Hodgkinson – at the World Championships in Tokyo last September and coincidentally was racing on the same afternoon as Bol, setting a world 1500m lead of 4:00.05 with a strong finish at the World Indoor Tour Gold meet in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Issy Boffey’s world leading mark of 1:57.43 also survives the weekend. It was beyond Bol in Metz but what can the Dutch athlete achieve once she really gets into her stride in her new event?