Femke Bol and Karsten Warholm (© Getty Images)
Women’s 400m
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Femke Bol will need no reminding of the last occasion on which she failed to cross the line first in a flat 400m race. In the two-lap final at the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, she was no match for Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the two-time Olympic champion from The Bahamas prevailing by the considerable margin of 0.26 in 50.31.
Two years on, it is Bol who is a class apart in the event on the boards. At her national championships in Apeldoorn on 18 February, the Flying Dutchwoman sped to victory in 49.24, registering an improvement of 0.02 on the world indoor record she set on the same track 12 months previously.
The 23-year-old world 400m hurdles champion is on a roll of 14 successive flat 400m victories indoors and out. She is the only woman to have broken 50 seconds this year, having also clocked 49.69 in Metz and 49.63 in Lievin.
Next fastest on the 2024 list is Bol’s compatriot and training partner Lieke Klaver, with the big lifetime best of 50.10 that she recorded as runner up in Apeldoorn.
A maiden world indoor title for Bol would therefore appear to be the closest thing to a formality in the cut and thrust of indoor competition.
Not that the two-time European indoor 400m champion considers the clock to be her principal rival at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24.
Asked if she could go quicker in the global arena than on home ground in Apeldoorn, she replied: “It will be difficult there, because you have to run twice one day (the heats and semifinals on Friday) and again the next day (the final on Saturday). That’s a heavier schedule.
“Moreover, the field of participants is stronger, so there is a greater chance of getting in each other’s way. That’s what makes indoor athletics beautiful, but it also means that the best times are not always achieved.”
Even in the great outdoors, things do not always run smoothly over 400m.
Bol might have ended the outdoor World Championships in Budapest last August with the high of a sublime flying finish, pulling a stunning victory out of the bag for her country in the women’s 4x400m, but she started with the low of that dramatic fall she suffered within sight of glory in the mixed 4x400m.
Alexis Holmes took advantage to snatch victory for the USA and the 24-year-old from Hamden, Connecticut, arrives in Scotland placed third on the 2024 list. She won the US indoor title in a championship record 50.34 in Albuquerque on 17 February.
Alexis Holmes celebrates USA's mixed 4x400m world record at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 (© Getty Images)
Klaver, however, boasts the consistency of three of the four fastest times behind Bol: 50.10, 50.50 and 50.54.
Having placed sixth and fourth in the last two world indoor finals, she will be out to repeat the Dutch gold and silver medal double from last year’s European Indoor Championships in Istanbul.
The prospect of a first one-two for the Netherlands in any discipline at the World Indoor Championships could be threatened not just by Holmes but also by Talitha Diggs, who finished second in the US Indoor Championships in 51.23 and who possesses a lifetime indoor best of 50.15.
The 21-year-old from New Jersey ran the opening leg for the US women’s 4x400m team anchored to victory by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon. Her mother, Joetta Clark Diggs, took world indoor 800m bronze behind Maria Mutola and Svetlana Masterkova in the Toronto Skydome in 1993.
Fourth quickest on season’s bests – behind Bol, Klaver and Holmes – is Henriette Jaeger, the multi-talented Norwegian who set a world U18 heptathlon record in 2020. The 20-year-old clocked a national indoor 400m record of 51.05 as runner-up to Klaver (50.57) at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Torun on 6 February.
Also at the sharp end of the entry list is British champion Laviai Nielsen, who finished third in Torun in 51.31, improving to 51.11 as runner-up to Klaver (50.50) in Lievin on 10 February.
Men’s 400m
Timetable | 2024 world list | world all-time list | world rankings
The last time the Glasgow Arena staged a major international track and field event, the latter day Viking Karsten Warholm was in rampaging form.
The Norwegian phenomenon stormed to an emphatic 400m victory at the 2019 European Indoor Championships, shredding his national record by 0.51 and tying Thomas Schonlebe’s 1988 European record with 45.05.
Five years on, the Olympic and three-time world 400m hurdles champion is the standout name on the entry list for the flat 400m at the World Indoor Athletics Championships Glasgow 24.
Warholm, who celebrates his 28th birthday two days before the opening session, has no indoor form to his name in 2024, having not competed since the shock defeat he suffered in his specialist event against the inspired Rai Benjamin at the Diamond League final in Eugene in September last year.
Last year Warholm had two warm up races before the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul, where he blasted off inside European record pace and ended up hanging on for victory in 45.35, just 0.09 ahead of the fast-finishing Belgian Julien Watrin.
Another notable entrant who has yet to race in 2024 is Jereem Richards, the defending champion from Trinidad and Tobago.
Richards, who turned 30 in January, won in Belgrade in 45.00 two years ago but failed to make it beyond the semifinals stage at the outdoor World Championships in Budapest last August.
Jereem Richards wins the battle for the line in the world indoor 400m final in Belgrade (© Getty Images)
A product of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide sporting set-up celebrated in the Steely Dan song Deacon Blues, Richards has a world indoor relay bronze from Istanbul 12 years ago and, of course, a world outdoor 200m bronze from London in 2017.
Top of the entry list on 2024 indoor times is Brian Faust, who unleashed an unstoppable tide to come from 0.58 down at halfway to pip Jacory Patterson to the US title in Albuquerque, surging from third to first in the home straight.
The 25-year-old, a graduate of the Purdue University Boilermakers in West Lafayette, Indiana, is unbeaten in five indoor 400m outings in 2024. He has an outdoor best of 45.51.
Patterson, who finished just 0.01 down in Albuquerque, ran 45.05 indoors last year and has an outdoor best of 44.81.
There have been five US winners in the event but none since Tyree Washington pipped Britain’s Daniel Caines in Birmingham in 2003.
Until 2022, there had only been one Swedish medal winner in the event - Johan Wissman, runner up to Canada’s Tyler Christopher in Valencia in 2008 – but in Belgrade Carl Bengtstrom claimed bronze behind Richards and Trevor Bassitt of the US.
The former European U20 400m hurdles champion also gained European indoor bronze behind Warholm and Watrin in Istanbul last year. He has a best this year of 46.38 but an indoor PB of 45.33.
There are two other sub-46.00 indoor performers in the field.
Matej Krsek, a bronze medallist with the Czech mixed 4x400m team at the World Championships in Budapest, has run 45.86 this season.
Alexander Doom, who clocked 45.89 in Metz on 3 February, ran second leg for the gold medal-winning Belgian 4x400m quartet at the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics
