Europe 1 with AFP 7:07 p.m., February 19, 2023
Cross-country skier Femke Bol, Olympic bronze medalist in the 400m hurdles, broke the oldest world record in a track race on Sunday.
The Dutch erased a 41-year-old record, that of the women's 400m indoors.
A feat she achieved in front of her audience, in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.
The Dutch Femke Bol broke the world record for the 400m indoors on Sunday, erasing from the shelves the performance established in 1982 by the Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova.
The 22-year-old athlete won in 49.26 at the Apeldoorn meeting in the Netherlands, improving by 33 hundredths on the time set more than forty years ago by Kratochvilova.
"It's thanks to all the fans here that I was able to break this record," she said to her audience.
"I've never seen so many people here. When I crossed the line, I knew I had broken the record because of the noise the crowd was making!"
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From bronze to the Olympics
Bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics in the 400m hurdles, Femke Bol also won the silver medal in the same distance at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene (Oregon), where she also won a medal of the same metal in the mixed 4x400 m event.
She also achieved an unprecedented hat-trick at the European Athletics Championships in Munich last August by winning the 400m and 400m hurdles before winning the 4x400m with her teammates.
Bol had already shone a week ago during the indoor meeting in Metz by descending under 50 seconds over 400 m (49.96).