Week in Review: Bol becoming a triple threat
Elite 400-meter hurdler produces standout performances in 400 and in 1,600 relay
It is not easy to stand out when you specialize in the same event as Sydney McLaughlin of the U.S.
Yet Femke Bol of the Netherlands has managed to distinguish herself this season, despite the fact that McLaughlin has set a pair of world records in the women’s 400-meter hurdles while dominating the event like no one before her.
The 22-year-old Bol turned in an unprecedented triple last week when she won the 400 and 400 hurdles, and ran the anchor leg on the victorious 1,600 relay team in the European Athletics Championships at the Olympiastadion in Munich.
The 6-foot tall Bol clocked a national record of 49.44 seconds in the 400 on Wednesday, ran 52.67 in the 400 hurdles on Friday, and turned in a scintillating 48.52 anchor leg for the Dutch team that set a national record of 3 minutes 20.87 seconds in winning the 1,600 relay on Saturday.
“I am so proud to achieve the double,” Bol told World Athletics.com after winning the 400 hurdles with a meet-record time. “I will never do the double again. Well, maybe. Never say never. I knew that if nothing strange happens, I would get this medal… This race was pretty hard. It was not easier than the 400 meters flat. I have been training hard for this. I would like to thank the crowd for their support, for helping me.”
Bol was the bronze medalist in the 400 hurdles in the Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer when McLaughlin set the second of her four world records, and she was the silver medalist in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, last month when Super Syd placed first in a stunning 50.68. Yet Bol has generated a lot of interest this year with her prowess in the one-lap race without hurdles.
She placed second to Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas in the 400 in the World Indoor Championships in March and she ran a then-national record of 49.75 to win the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Chorzow, Poland, on Aug. 6.
Bol’s countrywoman Lieke Klaver led the field through the first 250 meters of the 400-meter final in the European Championships while running in lane 8. But Bol, in lane 5, took the lead entering the home straightaway and Natalia Kaczmarek of Poland sped past a fading Klaver five meters later.
Bol gradually lengthened her lead over Kaczmarek (49.94) to about three meters at the finish line and Kaczmarek was nearly two meters ahead of countrywoman Anna Kielbasinska (50.29), who moved from fifth to third in the final 40 meters of the race. Klaver finished sixth in 50.56.
The time by Bol was the fourth-fastest in the world this year behind 49.11, 49.28, and 49.40 clockings by World champion Miller-Uibo and was the fastest by a European athlete since Antonina Krivoshapka of Russia ran 49.16 in 2012.
“I am very happy,” said the winner. “I think that this race was harder than the 400-meter hurdles. After the race I realized that it wasn’t so close race… I felt very confident today, as well as very strong. I got the great lane as my strongest competitors were running in the outside lanes.”
Bol, who was heavily favored to win the 400 hurdles, shared the lead with Carolina Krafzik of Germany for the first five flights of barriers. But she moved into the lead by the sixth hurdle and powered away from the field after that as her time of 52.67 was a meet record and gave her a margin of victory of nearly 15 meters over second-place Viktoriya Tkachuk of Ukraine (54.30).
The 1,600 relay was an exciting back-and-forth affair as Belgium led after the first exchange before Klaver gave the Netherlands the lead at the second exchange. It was a four-team race for first place at that point and Bol found herself in third – behind Belgium and Great Britain – when she received the baton for her anchor leg.
Bol was content to remain in that position down the backstretch and through most of the second turn before swinging into the second lane with 120 meters to go and taking the lead entering the straightaway. Displaying speed that that none of the other anchor runners had, she crossed the finish line five meters ahead of second-place Poland as the Netherland’s time of 3:20.87 demolished the previous national record of 3:23.74 that the team had set in finishing sixth in the Olympics last summer.
Poland, anchored by Kaczmarek, finished second in 3:21.68, followed by Great Britain in 3:21.74 and Belgium in a national-record 3:22.12.
“It was such an amazing race,” Bol said. “I really love to run with my girls and against other runners. This championship feels special to me.”
Advantageous schedule: I am not trying to diminish what Bol accomplished in the European Championships, but meet rules did not require her to run in a first-round heat of either the 400 or 400 hurdles.
Most major championship meets, such as the Olympic Games, World Championships, and Commonwealth Games, require competitors to run in a first-round heat in order to advance to the semifinals. However, this is the second European Championships in a row that have allowed for the top 12 entrants in each running event of 400 meters or less to get a bye into the semifinals.
That meant Bol did not have to run in a first-round heat of the 400 on Aug.15, or in a first-round heat of the 400 hurdles, which was held approximately 10 hours before the final of the 400 two days later.
For those who might be wondering, the event schedule for the World Championships in Eugene prevented anyone from having a legitimate chance of running well in both the women’s 400 and 400 hurdles.
It would not have been difficult for someone like Bol to advance out of the first round as heats of the 400 and 400 hurdles were held on July 17 and 19, respectively. But things would have become extremely challenging on July 20 when semifinals of the 400 hurdles began at 6:15 p.m., followed by semifinals of the 400 at 6:45.
Had an athlete somehow made it through that gauntlet, they would have had to run in the final of the women’s 400 at 7:15 p.m. on July 22, followed by the final of the 400 hurdles at 7:50.
One and done?: Will Mykolas Alekna compete for the UC Berkeley track and field team during the 2023 season?
I asked myself that question after he defeated a heavyweight field to win the men’s discus in the European Championships on Friday. I featured Alekna earlier this year as a rising star in the ancient field event.
The 19-year-old son of two-time Olympic and two-time World champion Virgilijus Alekna has thrown at such an extraordinarily high level this summer that you wonder if it would make more sense for him to throw professionally than to continue to compete collegiately.
Alekna was upset by Claudio Romero of the University of Virginia and Chile in the NCAA Championships in early June when his top effort of 66.15 meters (217 feet) left him two centimeters shy of Romero’s winning throw of 66.17 (217-1). But he has performed at a completely different level since then.
First, he raised his personal best to 69.00 (226-4) in winning the Lithuanian Championships on June 25. Then he topped that mark with a throw of 69.81 (229-0) to finish second in the Bauhaus-Galan Diamond League meet in Stockholm five days later.
That was followed by a silver-medal performance of 69.27 (227-3) in the World Championships on July 19, and then came Friday when his 69.78 (228-11) best missed his personal best by only three centimeters and gave him a victory over second-place Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia (68.28/224-0), who had defeated Alekna in Stockholm and for the World title.
The 6-foot-8 Ceh has thrown more than 70 meters (229-8) in five meets this season, but Alekna overtook him in the fifth round in Munich. When Ceh fouled on his sixth – and final – throw, Alekna matched his father’s 2006 feat of winning a European title.
“I am really happy to win the championships,” Alekna said. “I am still young, I expect that my journey will be a long one. Kristjan is a very strong athlete, maybe today wasn’t his day, but next year is going to be even better than this one. The rivalry between us will be tough, as well as the one with other athletes as [Olympic champion Daniel Stahl].”
When asked on Sunday night if Alekna was going to compete collegiately next year, Berkeley throws coach Mohamad Saatara texted “that is correct at this moment.”
Youth will be served II: Alekna was not the only teenager to win an individual title in the European Championships.
Fellow 19-year-old Elina Tzengko of Greece won the women’s javelin on Saturday with a personal best of 65.81 (215-11), followed by 18-year-old Adrianna Vilagos of Serbia at 62.01 (203-5) and 41-year-old Barbora Spatakova of the Czech Republic at 60.68 (199-1).
Tzengko took the lead with a throw of 60.82 (199-6) in the first round before unleashing her winning toss on her second attempt. She also had a sixth-round throw of 64.57 (211-10) that would have been good enough to win.
It was nice to see Tzengko perform well in a major meet, as she was eliminated in the qualifying round in the World Championships when her best throw of 57.12 (187-5) left her nearly two meters shy of the 59.06 (193-9) toss that gave Mackenzie Little of Australia the 12th – and final – berth in the final.
Big efforts in a big meet: Olympic champions Wojciech Nowicki of Poland and Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece produced the best marks in the world this year in winning the men’s hammer throw and long jump, respectively, in the European Championships.
The 33-year-old Nowicki had a superb series as he had four throws over 80 meters (262-5), including a best of 82.00 (269-0) in the fifth round that overtook the 80.92 (265-6) personal best that Bence Halasz of Hungary had produced in the third round.
Eivind Henriksen of Norway finished third at 79.45 (260-8) to match the bronze medal he won in the World Championships. Pawel Fajdek of Poland finished fourth at 79.15 (259-8) after throwing 81.98 (268-11) in defeating Nowicki to win his fifth consecutive World title last month.
Tentoglou, 24, spanned 8.52 (27-11½) in the long jump to defeat second-place Thobias Montler of Sweden and third-place Jules Pommery of France by a large margin, as each of them had a best jump of 8.06 (26-5½).
Montler was awarded the silver medal because his second-best jump of 7.95 (26-1) was farther than Pommery’s No. 2 effort of 7.85 (25-9¼).
After fouling on his first attempt, World silver medalist Tentoglou spanned 8.23 (27-0) on his second jump and 8.35 (27-4¾) on his third before hitting his best mark in the fourth round. He passed up his final two attempts.
Golden double double: Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway won the men’s 1,500 and 5,000 meters in the European Championships for the second time in a row, as his first victories came in the 2018 meet when he was 17.
The recently-crowned World champion in the 5,000 was victorious in that event on Aug. 16 when he ran 13:21.13 after running the last 1,600 meters in 3:57.00, the last 800 in 1:53.16, and the final 400 in 53.64. Mohamed Katir of Spain placed second in 13:22.98 and Yamaneberhan Crippa of Italy finished third in 13:24.83.
In the 1,500 final two days later, Olympic champion Ingebrigtsen rolled to a meet record of 3:32.76 while finishing well in front of silver medalist Jake Heyward of Great Britain (3:34.44) and bronze medalist Mario Garcia of Spain (3:34.88).
Brit Jake Wightman, who had upset Ingebrigtsen to win the 1,500 in the World Championships, ran the 800 in Munich and finished second in 1:44.91.
Ingebrigtsen, who is refreshingly opposed to letting championship 1,500-meter races turn into slow-paced, tactically-run affairs, took the lead 30 seconds into the race and never relinquished it as he came through 400 meters in 56.34, 800 in 1:54.11, and 1,200 in 2:51.68.
His victory marked the fourth time in the last five championships that an Ingebrigtsen brother had won the men’s 1,500 as Filip Ingebrigtsen won the event in 2016 and Henrik Ingebrigtsen won it in 2012 before finishing second in ’14.
Jakob, Filip, and Henrik have 1,500-meter bests of 3:28.32, 3:30.01, and 3:31.46, respectively.
Returning to form: Karsten Warholm of Norway looked more like himself while setting a meet record of 47.12 in the men’ 400-meter intermediate hurdles in the European Championships.
Warholm had run a stunning world record of 45.94 in winning the Olympic title last summer, but finished seventh in 48.42 in the World Championships while on the comeback trail from a strained right hamstring that caused him to pull up in his season-opening race on June 5.
He faded badly in the final straightaway of World Championships, but had no such problems on Friday as he led the field over the first of 10 barriers and finished more than a dozen meters ahead of second-place Wilfried Happio of France, who ran 48.56.
“I had a very tough season with injuries so to be here and to bounce back means the world,” Warholm said after winning his second consecutive European title. “I learned that I should never take anything like this for granted. Now I am going to enjoy it even more because it was so tough.”
Back in the win column: Marcell Jacobs of Italy was another Olympic champion who was victorious in the European Championships after being hampered by injuries this season.
The 27-year-old Jacobs won the men’s 100 meters in 9.95 seconds on Aug. 16 to defeat a field that included silver medalist Zharnel Hughes of Great Britain (9.99). Fellow Brit Jeremiah Azu placed third in 10.13.
Jacobs got off to a solid start before taking the lead at about the 70-meter mark. His winning performance came a month after he had scratched from a semifinal of the World Championships after running 10.04 in a first-round heat the previous day.
“I am not happy about how the race went technically, there were some problems,” Jacobs said after his victory. “I am over the moon with the gold medal. After Olympic gold, now I got the European gold. Got to get the world championship gold now.”
High-flying Finn: Wilma Murto of Finland won the women’s pole vault in the European Championships with a national-record height of 4.85 (15-11).
The 24-year-old vaulter was in third place after missing her first attempt at 4.70 (15-5). She then passed her remaining two attempts at that height before clearing national records of 4.75 (15-7) and 4.80 (15-9) on her first attempts, and 4.85 on her second try.
Her clearance at 4.80 moved her into first place and her make of 4.85 moved her into a three-way tie for second on the yearly world performer list and into sixth on the all-time European performer list.
Defending champion Aikaterini Stefanidi of Greece and Tina Sutej of Slovenia were the silver and bronze medalists after clearing 4.75. Stefanidi won the silver medal because she had fewer attempts in the competition than Sutej.
“This competition was just great,” Murto said. “My dreams came true. I knew I had it in me for a long time, but I just needed this day to come. Today, it felt like a perfect day to do that with my family and friends in the stands supporting me.”
Bouncing back: Ivana Vuleta of Serbia upset Olympic and two-time World champion Malaika Mihambo of Germany to win the women’s long jump in the European Championships.
Vuleta, who won the World indoor title in March, had finished seventh in the World Championships while struggling with her approach to the takeoff board. But she leaped 7.06 (23-2) on her first attempt in the final and that held up for the win as Mihambo finished second at 7.03 (23-0¾).
“It was a really beautiful competition, I enjoyed it with all the girls,” Vuleta said. “This season I have won World indoors, and now European outdoors, the only one missing was the medal from Eugene.”
Still sidelined: Max Burgin of Great Britain, who ran a yearly world-leading time of 1:43.54 in winning the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland, on June 14, missed the European Championships with an injury to his right calf muscle that also kept him out of the World Championships in July and the Commonwealth Games earlier this month.
The injury has been diagnosed as a deep vein thrombosis, which is basically a blood clot that often occurs in one’s legs and can cause pain, swelling, and tenderness in the area.
This is the second year in a row that the 20-year-old Burgin has run very well early in the season before being sidelined with a leg injury. He ran a then-personal best of 1:44.14 in May of last year before missing the remainder of the season.
Stealing the show: Freddie Crittenden lacked the name recognition of several of the athletes who competed in the North American and Caribbean Athletics Championships in Freeport, Grand Bahama, over the weekend. But no one turned in a better performance than him as his 13.00 clocking in the 110-meter high hurdles at the Grand Bahamas Sports Complex on Saturday tied him for the third-fastest time in the world this year.
Crittenden had run a then-personal best of 13.14 in the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field on June 26, but that left him in fifth place behind Daniel Roberts (13.03), Trey Cunningham (13.08), Devon Allen (13.09) and Jamal Britt (13.09).
Britt finished second in 13.08 on Saturday and Jamaican Orlando Bennett placed third in 13.18 as the top three finishers all ran personal bests.
Crittenden’s meet-record time moved him into a three-way tie for 23rd on the all-time world performer list and he became the 16th American to have run 13.00 or faster.
More top hurdle performances: Kyron McMasters of the British Virgin Islands outdueled Khallifah Rosser of the U.S. in the men’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles in the NACAC meet on Sunday.
The 25-year-old ran a meet-record and season best of 47.34 seconds in turning back Rosser (47.59), who had placed fifth in the World Championships.
McMasters had run a national record of 47.08 to place fourth in the Olympic Games last summer, but he scratched from a semifinal of the World Championships with an injury.
Big Two shine bright: World champions Shericka Jackson of Jamaica and Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas posted large margins of victories in winning their respective events in the NACAC meet on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Jackson, winner of the World title in the 200, won the women’s 100 meters in 10.83 in Freeport to finish well ahead of second-place Celera Barnes of the U.S., who ran 11.10.
Miller-Uibo, 28, ran 49.40 in the women’s 400 to defeat second-place Sada Williams of Barbados (49.86) by nearly half a second.
That was expected to be the last race of the season for two-time Olympic champion Miller-Uibo, who currently has the three fastest times in the world this year.
Big improvement: Andrew Hudson became the 12th Jamaican man to break 20 seconds in the 200 meters on Sunday when he ran 19.87 to win the event in the NACAC meet.
Americans Kyree King and Josephus Lyles placed second and third in 20.00 and 20.18, respectively.
The 25-year-old Hudson, who now ranks ninth on the all-time Jamaican performer list, had run his previous best of 20.03 in winning the Murphey Classic in Memphis, Tennessee, on July 30.
In memory: John Powell, a former world-record-holder in the men’s discus and a two-time Olympic bronze medalist for the U.S., died at his home in Las Vegas last Friday after a long illness. He was 75.
Powell set a world record of 69.08 (226-8) in the discus in 1975 and placed third in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and in the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. He also finished fourth in the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
He did not advance to the final of the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki in 1983, but won the silver medal in the second edition of the meet in Rome in 1987.
Powell was a graduate of San Jose State University who was ranked among the top six discus throwers in the world by Track & Field News 13 times. His highest ranking was No. 2 for the 1974 season and he was ranked third for the 1975 and ’76 seasons.
He set his personal best of 71.26 (233-9) in 1984, the year for which he was ranked fourth in the world. That throw puts him 11th on the all-time world performer list.