Femke Bol leads Dutch relay to gold in 4x400 meter race; Dutch team scores big

The Dutch track athletes taking part in the women’s 4x400 meter relay race won gold at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest on Sunday. Led by Femke Bol and Lieke Klaver, the foursome ran to the title, setting a new Dutch record in the process. It was the fifth medal for the Dutch team at the World Championships, the most the Netherlands has ever won at the annual event.

Joined by Eveline Saalberg and Cathelijn Peeters, they ran the final race in 3:20.72. They secured gold, finishing ahead of Jamaica and the United Kingdom.

It was a historic race for Dutch athletes, because a Dutch relay team has never won a gold medal at a World Championships before. It was clear that the United States’ relay team, seven-time world champions, was missing from the final. The team was disqualified due to a botched baton handoff in the semi-finals.

Saalberg started the race, and handed the baton over to Klaver, who advanced to third place. Peeters managed to hold onto that position. Bol came up in the last meters with enormous acceleration. She overtook Britain's Nicole Yeargin and Jamaica's Stacey Ann Williams.

The women’s relay team was chosen as last year’s Sports Team of the Year. Bol, Klaver, Saalberg and Lisanne de Witte, who was missing in the final in Budapest, captured gold at the European Athletics Championships in Munich last summer in 3:20.87, the best European time of that year.

The relay team also took home a silver medal in the 4x400 meters at the 2022 World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade. At last year's World Championships in Eugene, USA, the team was disqualified for dropping the baton.

For Bol, it was her second gold medal of the meet. The Amersfoort athlete previously became the first Dutch person ever to win the gold in the 400 meter hurdles.

Previously, in the final of the 4x400 meter mixed relay, she lost a certain medal as her team’s anchor runner due to a fall in the last few meters before the finish line.

Klaver ran her seventh race and competed in four events in this tournament. In addition to the 4x400 and the 4x400 mixed, she also ran the 400 flat, finishing in sixth place in the final. Klaver also raced in the 4x100 meters, but she did not wind up in the final.

Most medals for Dutch athletics ever

With two gold, one silver and two bronze medals, the World Athletics Championships in Budapest has become the most successful meet for the Dutch team since the first official World Championship in 1983. A year ago, the Dutch squad won four medals in Eugene, Oregon, matching the total at the 2017 event in London.

Sifan Hassan was also good for two medals. She won silver in the 5,000 meters and bronze in the 1,500 meters. Anouk Vetter won the bronze medal in the heptathlon.

In the medal tally, the Netherlands finished in eighth place. The United States scored by far the most medals: twelve gold, eight silver and nine bronze. Canada was a distant second (four golds, two silvers) and Spain third (four golds, one silver).