Femke Bol leads mixed relay team to gold medal in Paris

The Dutch mixed 4×400 relay team won a gold medal in Paris on Saturday. Femke Bol, Lieke Klaver, Eugene Omalla, and Isaya Klein Ikkink won the final in a sold-out Stade de France with a new Dutch record time of 3.07,43, which is only two hundredths above the world record. As the final runner, Bol went from fourth to first position with a powerful final sprint.

This is the first Dutch medal at the games in athletics.

The United States team won the silver medal, and the United Kingdom won the bronze medal. The American Kaylyn Brown saw the unstoppable Bol run past her in the final meters of the race. Her split time was 47.93 seconds, a men's time.

Bol was new to the team in the final. She was given permission to skip the series on Friday because she is mainly focusing on the 400-meter hurdles, the race type in which she won the world championship.

National team coach Laurent Meuwly gave the world record holder a spot in the 400-meter indoor instead of the less fast Cathelijn Peeters.

Omalla was a replacement for Liemarvin Bonevacia, who was ruled out of the Olympics in Paris due to a hamstring injury. The son of a Ugandan father has only had a Dutch passport since recently.

The team finished fourth in the mixed relay at the Tokyo Games three years ago. It won silver at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and bronze at the European Championships in Rome last June. The final of the World Athletics Championships last year in Budapest remains memorable because Bol suddenly collapsed and fell a few meters from the finish in first position.