ISTANBUL

Dutch runner Femke Bol set a new world record in the women's indoor 400m on Sunday with a time of 49.26 seconds.

"I was hoping to run the record, of course, but in life you hope for a lot of things and most of the time it does not happen," Bol said at the Dutch Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn.

"I am glad that I did not just get the record, but that I improved it by a big margin," she said after winning the race.

Jarmila Kratochvilova of the old Czechoslovakia ran 49.59 seconds for the 400m in Italy's Milan back in March 1982.

This was the 22-year-old Bol's last race before the Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships between 2 and 5 March.