After Femke Bol bettered her own world record to win the 400m in a dominant display of gun-to-tape running at last weekend’s World Athletics Indoor championships, she said, “Last year I ran a world record and now I’ve done it again. Isn’t it good enough yet?”
There is no doubt that Bol is an elite athlete — ordinarily, her world-beating achievements, in both the 400m flat and her favourite event, the 400m hurdles, are significantly better than “good enough”. It’s just that she happens to be chasing Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, widely regarded as the greatest 400m hurdler of all time, and so Bol never quite knows if she is “good enough”.
