Femke Bol on Sunday marked her outdoor debut ahead of the Paris Olympics with victory in the 400m hurdles, while Armand “Mondo” Duplantis went close to bettering his own pole vault world record at the Diamond League meet in Stockholm.
The Dutch hurdler, who set a world record when winning the 400m flat in the world indoors in Glasgow in March, was pushed early on by Jamaica’s Rushell Clayton and Andrenette Knight, in a field featuring five athletes from the final at last year’s world champs in Budapest.
She held her form to easily pull clear down the home stretch, although her time of 53.07 seconds was just off the record of 52.7 seconds set by US archrival Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone on Friday.
Photo: AFP
“It was really fun, Stockholm is really a wonderful place and especially if I can run during Mondo’s world record attempts, then the crowd is really amazing,” Bol said.
Duplantis made sure the vociferous home crowd had lots to cheer for in the men’s pole vault.
The US-born Swede wrapped up the competition with a winning height of 6.00m, but then had three very close attempts at 6.25m, 1cm higher than his own world record.
Photo: AFP
Arguably, Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati produced the performance of the meeting.
Sedjati scorched to victory in the 800m in 1 minute, 43.23 seconds, the fastest time of the season so far.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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