Femke Bol from the Netherlands, who won the European 400m hurdles and 400m titles in Munich two years ago, will be defending only the first in Rome – although she will hardly be idle, given that she is down for women’s and mixed 4x400m relays.
At 24, the current world 400m hurdles champion is moving smoothly through her Olympic season, maintaining an unbeaten run which extended on Sunday (2) to her first race over the barriers this season.
After getting off to a relatively slow start she overhauled the field to win in Stockholm in 53.07, her fastest ever season’s debut.
The 400m hurdles is the main focus this season for the athlete who last year bettered the longest standing world record on the track as she ran 400m indoors in 49.26, and has reduced that to 49.24, and then 49.17 this year.
Like her male counterpart - fellow world and European 400m hurdles champion Norway’s Karsten Warholm - Bol runs in Rome with rivals elsewhere in mind.
In her case there is always the implicit comparison with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the American who beat her to the 2022 world title in a world record of 50.68, and who opened her 2024 season on May 31 with 52.70.
An impressively successful defence of her title will keep Bol moving on an upward trajectory this season.
There is the distinct possibility of a Dutch one-two as her teammate and training partner Cathelijn Peeters has run a big personal best of 54.31 this season, putting her second on the European list behind her most illustrious compatriot.
France’s Louise Maraval has done the same, clocking 54.44 while Great’s Britain’s Lina Nielsen has also run her fastest time already this season with 54.73.
Also watch out for veteran Ukrainian Hanna Ryzhykova to make another push for the podium some twelve years after she won her first European medal with silver in Helsinki 2012.
Fierce battle expected for 100m gold
Poland’s Ewa Swoboda and Zaynab Dosso of Italy, silver and bronze medallists respectively at this year’s World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, will carry realistic hopes of another podium appearance in the 100m.
The ebullient Pole has run 11.05 this season but has a best of 10.94 and a long history of achievement in championships while Dosso has taken a big chunk off the Italian record with 11.02 this season.
Defending champion Gina Luckenkemper, who delighted the Munich crowd with her dramatic victory in 2022, has a best of 10.96 and has run 11.05 this year. She will not give up her title easily.
Switzerland’s 31-year-old Mujinga Kambundji, who came back from just missing out on the 100m title in Munich 2022 with victory in the 200m, is returning to form after injury. Her season’s best of 11.22 is comparatively modest to her lifetime best of 10.89 but she is a redoubtable championship performer.
Another fierce championship performer is Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith who won a sprint treble at the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships.
Asher-Smith was left frustrated in Munich 2022 when she had to relinquish all three titles but the Brit - who parted ways with her long-time coach John Blackie to train with Edrick Floreal in Austin, Texas - is hungry and motivated to regain her 100m crown.
Speaking to European Athletics earlier this year, she said: “I am really excited for these Europeans, I have big goals for myself, very big aspirations of what I want to run, especially when I run the 100m and how I want to run and how I want to win it.”
While Asher-Smith will not run the 200m, her teammate Daryll Neita will – and with a personal best of 22.16 and a season’s best of 22.50 she is the strongest contender on paper.
But while Kambundji, the defending champion, has only run 22.87 so far this year, the Swiss record-holder at 22.05 has a competitive record that has seen her win world 200m bronze – behind Asher-Smith in 2019 – as well as world and European indoor 60m titles in the past two years.
Watch out too for Norway’s Henriette Jaeger and Boglarka Takacs of Hungary who stand second and third respectively in the list of entrants after recording national records of 22.58 and 22.71 this season.
Three-way battles for 400m and 100m hurdles gold?
The decision made by Femke Bol not to defend her 400m title in Rome clears the way to the top of the podium for runners who have been striving – and improving – in her wake.
The rising force in the event is Ireland’s Rhasidat Adeleke, the 21-year-old former European U20 100/200m champion who has since stepped up to the 400m and has demolished the Irish record which now stands at 49.20. This time makes her the fastest in the field.
Bol’s Dutch training partner Lieke Klaver has also made huge strides in the past two years, breaking 50 seconds for the first time in 2023 when she ran 49.81 in Silesia and adding world indoor silver in Glasgow earlier this year as she clocked 50.16 to move into the world indoor all-time top-10.
Meanwhile the 2024 European list is topped by Natalia Kaczmarek, who finished second behind Bol in Munich.
The fast-finishing Pole, who stepped up to world silver last year behind Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, is the fastest of those competing in Rome with a season’s best of 49.80, set in Oslo last Thursday, and has a personal best of 49.48.
The most likely interloper is former combined eventer Henriette Jaeger who has entered the 200m, 400m and the 4x400m at these championships. The European U23 400m silver medallist arrives fresh from setting a Norwegian record of 50.81 in Oslo.
While Mujinga Kambundji will be engaged in defending her 200m title, younger sister Ditaji will be seeking an upgrade on the bronze medals she won at the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships and last year’s European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul in the 100m hurdles.
She tops the list of those competing in Rome having run 12.49 to win the Diamond League in Doha on 10 May and her chances of gold look healthy.
But she has serious opposition in the form of France’s 23-year-old Cyrena Samba-Mayela, who won over 60 hurdles at the 2022 World Indoor Championships in a national record of 7.78 and is enjoying her best season to date with her home Olympics in Paris 2024 looming.
Earlier this year Samba-Mayela lowered her record to 7.74 as she took silver at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow behind the world record time of 7.65 set by Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas.
She has since equalled the French outdoor record to 12.55 in finishing third in Xiamen before claiming the mark outright a few weeks later at Clermont in clocking 12.52, a time she replicated at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene.
Meanwhile Poland’s Pia Skrzyszowska looks ready to mount a strong defence of the title she won two years ago in Munich.
She was third at this year’s Doha Diamond League in 12.53, 0.02 slower than the personal best she set in Chorzow two years ago.
Others to watch out for include Great Britain’s Cindy Sember, who has run 12.50; Sarah Lavin from Ireland, who has a personal best of 12.62; Nadine Visser of the Netherlands, the European indoor champion in 2019 and 2021 who has a best of 12.51; Laeticia Bapte of France, who has run 12.69; and Finland’s reigning European indoor champion Reetta Hurske, who has a best of 12.70.
Mike Rowbottom for European Athletics