Femke Bol of the Netherlands set a new world record in the women’s indoor 400m on Sunday with a time of 49.26 seconds, breaking the previous mark set 41 years ago.
The 22-year-old beat Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvilova’s record of 49.59 seconds set in March 1982 at the Dutch national championships in Apeldoorn.
Bol, a world and Olympic 400m hurdles medalist, also set a world record of 36.86 seconds in the rarely run 300m hurdles last year in Ostrava.
Shiffrin ‘Won Silver’ At World Championships
Although the color was not what she had hoped for, Mikaela Shiffrin said she was happy to finish her “spectacular” world championships with a silver medal in the women’s slalom on Saturday.
Shiffrin was the overwhelming favorite to win her fifth world slalom title, but a shaky second run saw her finish second to Canada’s surprise winner Laurence St-Germain. Lena Duerr of Germany won bronze.
Shiffrin now has 14 world championship medals, one more than all-time leader Christl Cranz of Germany, who competed between 1934 and 1939, when world championships were held every year and ski racing had yet to evolve into what it is today.
Shiffrin also won giant slalom gold and super-G in the French Alps, bringing her world championship total to seven golds, four silvers, and three bronze medals from just 17 starts.
“In general, the headline would be losing gold, but for me, it’s winning silver,” Shiffrin explained.
“It’s been spectacular, a complete world championships, every emotion I can feel, and I’m really proud of the last two weeks.”
She went on to say that ski racing was a high-risk, high-reward sport, citing Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener, a two-time Olympic slalom medalist who skied out with the finish line — and a podium spot — in sight.
“I sit here with three medals… “I guess we all know that I’ve been in the situation where I don’t have any medals,” Shiffrin said, referring to her failure to win a single medal at last year’s Olympics in Beijing.
“If you look at Wendy today, putting her whole heart on the slope and going for gold and then it’s such a disappointing moment in a blink of an eye, it’s all gone. I know how that feels, so I’m grateful to be on the bright side of things.”
