Exciting Dutch star Femke Bol got her 2022 season off to an impressive start this weekend with a pair of impressive wins at the Meeting Metz Moselle Athlelor in Metz on Saturday (12). The event is part of the ongoing 2022 World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver level series.
Watch Bol sizzles to world-best for 2022
Bol opened her campaign with a world-leading time in the women’s 400m and then set a personal best in the 200m to close out the day as she kick-starts her preparations for the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, next month.
The double European Indoor gold medalist from 2021 broke ahead after the first lap en route to dominating the 400m on Saturday, posting a world-quickest 50.72 seconds to better the 51.10 by Poland’s Anna Kiełbasińska earlier this month. Her winning time was just shy of the 50.63 PB and national record she clocked to win the European title in Toruń last March.
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Natalia Kaczmarek, a member of Poland’s Olympic mixed 4x400m gold medal-winning team in Tokyo, finished second overall after winning section two of the event in Metz. For her efforts, Kaczmarek was credited with a personal best of 51.58, while third went to Bol’s training partner and compatriot Lieke Klaver who won the third section in 52.49.
France’s Amandine Brossier, who ran a season’s best of 52.65 to finish second to Bol in the first section, was fourth overall, while countrymate Sokhna Lacoste (52.79 PB) and Belgium’s Camille Laus (52.90) also dipped under the 52-seconds barrier.
Bol also goes fast in the 200m with PB
Meanwhile, Bol secured her second sprint race victory on the day when she returned around 45 minutes later to post a new personal best of 23.37 in the 200m. Her time, though, was second overall to Klaver, who won the other heat in 23.27.
“I’m really happy to be back racing,” said Bol on the World Athletics website.
European indoor 60m champion and Olympic finalist Ajla Del Ponte of Switzerland ran 23.68 for third overall with Jamaica’s Roneisha McGregor doing 23.72 for fourth.
In another notable event at the Meeting Metz Moselle Athlelor this weekend, American Kayla White ran the seventh-fastest time in the world this year to win the women’s 60m in a PB of 7.13 and defeated Trinidad and Tobago’s Michelle-Lee Ahye (7.21). Del Ponte was 5th with 7.33.
Cisse continues record form in the 60m
Elsewhere, Arthur Cisse equaled his own Ivorian record of 6.53 to win the men’s 60m race, just edging USA’s Cravont Charleston (6.54), Frenchman Pascal Martinot-Lagarde took an exciting 60m hurdles with 7.51 seconds over countryman from Wilhem Belocian (7.52) and Spain’s Asier Martinez, who set a personal best of 7.55 for third.
In the longer distances, Ethiopian Samuel Tefera, the World indoor 1500m champion, made an impressive debut in the 3,000m after stopping the clock at 7:37.45 to get home ahead of Kenya’s Daniel Simiyu (7:37.86) and Ethiopia’s Yasin Haji (7:39.23). Olympic finalist Abel Kipsang also made it a winning start to his indoor career after taking the men’s 1500m in 3:36.23 ahead of Poland’s world bronze medallist Marcin Lewandowski, who did 3:37.17.
In the field, Olympic silver medallist Chris Nilsen of the USA won the men’s pole vault with 5.91m, easily over his countryman Jacob Wooten (5.71), while Olympic champion Miltiádis Tentóglou of Greece improved his season’s best to 8.22 to dominate the men’s long jump.
