Dutch track and field athlete Femke Bol won the indoor women's 400-meter gold medal in the Dutch indoor championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, on Sunday. She ran the race in 49.26 seconds, breaking the 41-year-old world record of the event, which has stood the longest in any track race on earth.

The previous record of 49.59 seconds was set by Jarmila Kratochvilova of the Czech Republic (former Czechoslovakia) in March 1982.

Bol has been on a remarkable form in February. She set the 17-year-old indoor women's 500-meter world best after running 1:04.63 in the New Balance Grand Prix in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 4; eight days later, Bol set her personal best of 49.96 seconds in the indoor women's 400-meter race at the Metz Moselle Athlelor, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting, in New York City. She also became the first one to ran less than 50 seconds in the event in 17 years.

Bol also won the women's 200-meter gold medal at the Metz after finishing the race in 22.87 seconds, setting both her personal best and a new event record.

"I was hoping for a 49.5 here, but 49.26. I really have no words for this," Bol said after winning the race on Sunday. "It is my first world record at a real distance. Could it be even faster? This was almost a perfect race."

"When I crossed the line I knew that the record was mine, because of the noise that the crowd made," she added.

Bol turns 23 years old on Thursday. She won the women's 400-meter hurdles bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. One year later, she pocketed both the women's 400-meter and 400-meter hurdles golds in the European Athletics Championships in Munich Germany, becoming the first one to do so in the tournaments' history. Bol also won the women's 4x400-meter relay race gold in Munich.