How Femke Broeders-Bol Became A 1:54 800m Runner | Inside the Training with Coach Laurent Meuwly

On the latest episode of The CITIUS MAG Podcast, we sit down with Laurent Meuwly, the head coach for sprints, hurdles, and relays at the Dutch Olympic Training Centre in Papendal. He has been with the Dutch program since 2019, and the group he has built includes Femke Broeders-Bol, Lieke Klaver, Nadine Visser, and a rotating cast of international athletes including Australian sprint star Torrie Lewis.

Under his guidance, Dutch relay teams have become a dominant force on the world stage, and his athletes have collected world titles, Olympic medals, and European records across the flat 400, the 400 hurdles, and now — in her first season of competition at the distance — the 800 meters. That last one is the main reason we wanted him on.

When Femke Broeders-Bol made the decision to move up to the 800 this season, it was Laurent who had already been thinking about this moment since he first started working with her. He actually talked her out of making the switch a year earlier than she wanted to — she wanted to go right after the Paris Olympics, he convinced her to stay at 400 hurdles for one more season, win a second world title, and leave that chapter on a high note. Then came the transition.

This interview was done one day after Femke ran 1:54 — putting her within the top ten on the all-time list. Laurent is candid about everything: what he kept from Femke’s 400 hurdles training and what he changed, why her mileage stays around 60 kilometers a week, the mental adjustment of still being only halfway through the race after one full lap, why the world record conversation will eventually shift from who breaks it to conversations about 1:52.
Everyone’s been interested in the Femke Broeders-Bol 800m transition and we’ve got the inside scoop.

Take this interview on-the-go in podcast form:
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