Coming in as the race favorite, Femke Bol smashed her 400m Indoor World Record, for the second time this season, at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. Alexander Doom, an “underdog” in the men’s 400m caused a huge upset by outsprinting Karsten Warholm, the current 400mh world record, at the home straight to break the Belgium 400m national record.
Doom indicated that going into these championships, the focus was to defend the Belgium 4x400m title.
He had little expectations from his individual race but knew that he may have chances to win an individual medal.
“I know I have big return shots, that’s one of my strong points. So I know I had an opportunity to maybe take a medal, but to win gold is something else, especially against Karsten,” Doom indicated.
During his warmup, Doom was considering pulling out the race due to pain from an injury. After hearing about his friend and fellow countryman Julien Watrin’s cancer diagnosis, Doom indicated that he was inspired to run faster times.
“With Watrin’s having cancer now, I have a big motivation to run really fast. He said if I have the opportunity to take his Belgium record, I could take it.”
According to Warholm, he knew Doom would be a strong contender as he had seen him training the previous day.
“I had a good opponent today, he ran a race of a lifetime and I got to be happy for him I guess,” said Warholm.
Bol’s dominance in the 400m came as no surprise but it was when she crossed the finish line and the clock displayed 49.18sec, that caused a wild roar in at the Glasgow Emirates Arena. The official time was ratified to 49.17. She lined up with training mate and fellow countrywoman Lieke Klaver.
“Sometimes we just high five and tell each other lets go. But today we just gave each other a nod facing each other. We didn’t say anything but we knew like, lets win them,” Klaver explained.
The level of concentration on Bol’s face was intense, and you could vividly see how badly she wanted this title.
“I knew I needed a really good race to win this gold, I knew I had to open really fast to win this gold.”
Last year Bol ran a 1:05 over the 500m, which is a world best time. Her coach Laurent Meuwly indicated that she has a lot of endurance and could potentially make a great 800m athlete. When asked about any plans of moving up to the 800m, Femke indicated that she loves endurance but loves the 400mh and 400m more.
With Olympics on the horizon, both Bol and Doom will be having their eyes on the most sought-after prize.
Credit: AIPS Media
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