Budapest
The United States won the mixed 4x400m relay at the World Athletics Championships on Saturday night, improving their own world record to 3:08.80 after the Netherlands’ world indoor 400m record-holder Femke Bol fell three strides from the finish line, having appeared on the brink of anchoring her team to victory.
In between those, Ryan Crouser successfully defended his shot put title with a championship record of 23.51m, and Gudaf Tsegay led an Ethiopian sweep of the medals in the women’s 10,000m.
But falls from two prominent Dutch athletes first by Sifan Hassan in the 10,000m and then by Femke Bol in the mixed 4x400m proved the two big talking points of the dramatic evening.
Handed the baton with a narrow lead, Bol could not hold it to the finish as USA’s Alexis Holmes, gritting her teeth, moved up to challenge her over the final 50 metres. Bol fell and landed very close to the spot where her Dutch teammate Sifan Hassan had fallen face down as she appeared ready to win the preceding women’s 10,000m final.
Leading from the first throw of the competition, Crouser twice bettered the championship record he set in Oregon in 2022 with 22.98m in round two, and then with a stunning 23.51m in round six, just five centimetres shy of the world record he nailed in Los Angeles in May this year.
Italian Leonardo Fabbri claimed silver with a lifetime best of 22.34m while American Joe Kovacs took the bronze medal with a distance of 22.12m.
