By Citius Mag Staff
February 11, 2026
By David Melly and Kyle Merber
Last weekend in Metz, France, 400m hurdles World champ Femke Bol made her 800m debut with a 1:59.07 win, the first step in her much-publicized move to focus on the longer event during the 2026 season. Bol broke the Dutch national record in her first effort and landed at #5 on the 2026 list so far this season.
There’s been a lot of debate over Bol’s potential in the 800m, what her run in Metz indicates, and how excited fans should be about this new move. Kyle Merber and David Melly take the debate out of the group chat and into the newsletter:
KM: I am super impressed—this was an A+ performance by every metric. I can’t confirm the validity of this statement, but that has to be the fastest 800m debut of all-time.
DM: I wouldn’t say I’m let down by her performance by any means, but I’m not entirely sure what the big whoop is. When I woke up Sunday morning, our friend James Rhodes had asked Twitter, “When is the last time there was this much anticipation for a (non-championships) race?” I was like… last weekend, at Millrose? There’s a long history of established athletes trying new events with a wide range of success, from Gwen Jorgensen to Dafne Schippers. But most of the time, a World champion is a World champion in their primary event for a reason and the shift doesn’t yield anything new or exciting.
KM: The offseason in track is normally pretty boring and filled with pointless debates of “what-if” type-scenarios so when Femke Bol announced she was transitioning to the 800m, there was rightfully a lot of buzz. Before she even ran a single step at the new distance, as a fan of the sport, you have to rally behind an athlete at this level going public with their intent to try something new.
To your points of comparison, the marathon gold obviously didn’t work out for Gwen. Dafne had previously run 22.03 to win Europeans, so she wasn’t as much of an unknown entity. Remember last year when Noah Lyles tested out the 400m and only ran 45.87? And the transition from the 400m hurdles to the 800m is a more drastic leap. Now considering that 89 women broke two minutes last year, we can’t hand over any medals yet, but it’s quite obvious we’ve got something here!
DM: I kinda thought Femke would run between 1:58 and 2:00 and that’s exactly what she did. If she’d run closer to 1:58 looking like she had way more in the tank, I would’ve maybe been sitting up a little on my couch. But the problem is that I already think really highly of her – she’s an 11-time medalist, for Chrissake—so anything other than being a legitimate gold medal contender in a new event feels like a step down. And 1:55 missed the podium in Tokyo last year.
KM: The fact that she met the baseline of your high expectations is a testament to the esteem you already held her in. Remember the 2025 season wrapped up at the end of September. Based on my investigative cyber-stalking, she took a nice break and really has only been at it for a few months. Her fitness will continue to improve, and she’ll figure out the event. For better or worse, we saw her go out a bit too hard, back off the pace and then change gears to close it down. It’s a promising sign that her penultimate lap was the slowest—she did have something left in the tank!
Also, let’s not overlook the fact that the four women she handily beat have all run under 2:00 multiple times.
DM: I think a big part of what initially made me think she has great potential in the 800m is that when she runs the flat 400m, she looks like she’s jogging the whole first half. But she also looked like that in the race in Metz on Friday and ran a hefty positive split, so maybe that’s just… what she looks like when she races. I do wonder if some of the hype just comes down to the fact that Femke is a much bigger star across the pond and we’re so Sydney-pilled in the U.S. we don’t think about her the same way. It was wild that she got a splash page on the European Athletics website just for this.
KM: It’s difficult for the American mind to comprehend how big of stars track athletes are abroad. I was in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago and they all know her! But imagine if Rai Benjamin took up the 800m and ran 1:44.5 his first time out—we’d be freaking out.
While the WA scoring tables are not a perfect science, it is notable that this first 800m is dangerously close to the value of her 200m best. The truth is that she really is just not THAT fast from a sprinting perspective, but Femke is strong as hell and that’s where she excels. We saw that with her 500m world record, and Keely’s 1:23.41 is living on borrowed time in the 600m.
DM: Honestly, I’d be more excited to see Rai take a real crack at the flat 400m—let’s see how close to 43 he can get if he really focuses on it. He’s talked about wanting to run the 200m, but I don’t really see a world where he’s contending with Lyles and Tebogo. It’s weird to me that Femke doesn’t see the flat 400m as a race with more upside. Maybe she feels like she’s already maxed out the potential there?
KM: Did you watch the same race in Tokyo as I did? Sydney, Marileidy, AND Salwa… no thank you! But again, I think the 800m just plays more to her strengths. Every athlete keeps moving up in distance until they’re competitive, and in the Netherlands she was already competitive at the 400m as a 15 year old so there wasn’t much of a need to keep going.
DM: I will say, if she sticks with it all year and keeps winning, my tune would change. I can see a path where Femke is winning her way up to a clash with Keely at Europeans, and there’s a real possibility the matchup will be a fair fight. I’m a little worried it’ll be closer to what we saw with Beatrice Chebet in the 1500m last year instead—she’s really, really good and could maybe even medal, but it became clear she’s not beating Faith Kipyegon at every distance and she sorta retreated back to the safety of the 5k.
KM: I think if the barometer of success is, “Does she beat the Olympic champion the first year in a new event?” then we may be setting ourselves up for disappointment. But if I am a world class 800m runner right now, then I am nervous. Keely’s 400m best is only 51.61. Do you remember the advantage a healthy Athing Mu had with 49.57 speed? The last time an indoor 400m world record holder moved up to the 800m was Jarmila Kratochvílová, and she ran 1:56.29 in year one and 1:53.28 WR the following.
DM: That world record has lived long enough and then some. For any multitude of reasons, it would be awesome to see Femke clear that lofty bar. Only time will tell!
What do you think – is Femke Bol the next great middle-distance star, is this an over-hyped Eurocentric stunt, or somewhere in between? Let us know!
Citius Mag Staff
