Dutch runner Femke Bol will be competing in the 400-metre hurdles of the Van Damme Memorial at 9.52 p.m. on Saturday and she hopes her last Diamond League event for the year will be a fitting end to her season.
"I'm feeling better and I'm ready, otherwise I wouldn't be here," Femke Bol said at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.
Illness had forced the 24-year-old Dutch athlete to withdraw from the previous round of the Diamond League in Zurich. "The Games have put a lot of demands on my body," she explained.
Third in the 400m hurdles, silver in the 4x400m relay and gold in the mixed 4x400m relay in Paris, Bol is "very excited" to be finishing the season in Brussels.
"It's almost home for me," she said. "I remember last year after Budapest (and the world championships), I was really tired, but the atmosphere and the public here make you forget that you're tired.
"I want to give it my all, because that's my character. I'm a perfectionist, in training and in the race. I always want to do the best I can, but it's easier when you love what you do."
Bol, who holds the European record (50.95 secs), is also delighted to see "her" event growing in importance, and is delighted to see girls in Brussels who are also under 52 seconds, she said.
That was an apparent reference to Americans Anna Cockrell and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who holds the world record - 50.37 seconds. They will be running in two invitational races, 200m and 400m.
"There are now four of us, whereas not so long ago the world record was 52 seconds," Bol added.
Last year, the young Dutchwoman improved the then 25-year-old record, 52.11 secs, at the Brussels meeting, but she now has to cope without her coach, Bram Peters, who is joining the Dutch-speaking athletics league in Belgium.
