Evelyn Salberg and Kathleen Peters were the other two athletes on the Gold Team who finished ahead of Jamaica and Great Britain.
Dutch athletes in the 4x400m relay won gold at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. Led by Femke Boll and Lekke Claver, the quartet ran to the title in the final of the final part of the World Cup in a Dutch record time of 3:20.72. Evelyn Salberg and Kathleen Peters were the other two athletes on the Gold Team who finished ahead of Jamaica and Great Britain.
gold for the second time
It was the Dutch team’s fifth World Cup medal. Paul earned her second gold medal. De Amersfoortse had previously won gold in the 400m hurdles as the first ever Dutchman. In the 4x400m mixed relay final a week ago, she lost out on a medal as the final runner because of a fall in the final meters before the finish.
It was a historic race for Dutch athletics, because the Dutch relay team had never won a gold medal at a World Cup before. It is true that the relay team of the United States, seven-time world champions, was absent from the final. The team was eliminated from the series due to a wrong stick change.
Starting runner Salberg handed the baton to Claver, who advanced to third. Peters managed to hold his own. Paul came in the last meters with a huge acceleration. This time it didn’t last long, but she beat Britain’s Nicole Yergen and Jamaican Stacy Ann Williams.
disqualification
The women’s relay was named last year’s team sports best. Paul, Clavier, Saalberg and Lizanne de Wit, who missed out on the final in Budapest, won gold at the European Athletics Championships in Munich last summer with a time of 3:20.87, the European best of the year.
The relay team also succeeded in winning the silver medal in the 4 x 400m event at the 2022 World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade. And at last year’s World Cup in Eugene, USA, the team was disqualified due to a wrong substitution.
Claver ran her seventh race and competed in four heats at this championship. In addition to the 4×400 and 4×400 mixed, she also ran the 400m flat (6th in the final) and the 4x100m (didn’t finish in the final).
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