Peter Bol

Bol was a talented basketball player in Perth, Western Australia. After a successful cross-country race, a teacher at St. Norbert College advised him to try running 800 metres when he was 16 years old. Bol achieved a personal best time of 1:48.90 in the junior men’s 800 m race at the Australian Athletics Championships in 2013. In 2014 and 2015, he set his first sub-1:48 and sub-1:47 records, respectively.

He registered two Olympic qualifying times of 1:45.78 and 1:45.41 in 2016 that qualified him for the Olympics. As a result, his name was chosen for the Australian team to compete in the Rio Olympics. With a timing of 1:49.36, Bol placed sixth in his heat at the Olympics. At the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London, he finished seventh in his heat in 1:49.65. He defeated training partner Joseph Deng with a personal best time of 1:44.56 in the 800 meters at an IAAF (now World Athletics) meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 2018. At the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, he was beaten in the heats of his event as he clocked 1:46.92.

Bol placed first in his semi-final in the Tokyo Olympics 2020 with a timing of 1:44:11. In the tactical final, he finished fourth, missing out on the bronze medal by just 0.53 of a second. The winning time of 1:45.06 set by Emmanuel Korir was slower than the time set by Bol in his heat. In June 2022, he achieved a new Oceania and Australian record of 1:44.00 at the Paris Diamond League. This was the third time he shattered the 800 m national record. At the World Championships in his discipline that year, held in Eugene, Oregon, Bol placed seventh with a time of 1:45.51. He then went on to win the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 with a timing of 1:47.66.

Peter Bol is coached by Justin Rinaldi. In 2015, he travelled to Melbourne to train with National Record Holder Alex Rowe and be coached by Justin Rinaldi. Following Alex Rowe in 2015 and Jo Deng in 2018, Peter became the third athlete trained under Justin Rinaldi to achieve the national 800m record in the previous six years. Justin also serves as the head coach of the Fast 8 Track Club in Melbourne, Australia.

Peter Bol was born in Khartoum, Sudan, on February 22, 1994. His mother, Hanan Kuku, is from Sudan, and his father, Abdalla Mador Bol, is from South Sudan. When he was four years old, his family left Sudan to escape the civil conflict. It was incorrectly claimed in 2016 that they spent four years living in a refugee camp in Egypt before moving to Australia. Bol stated in The West Australian in August 2021 that they never resided in a refugee camp, despite what some people have claimed and written. Bol came in Toowoomba, Queensland, at the age of eight. He was raised in Perth and received a basketball scholarship to attend St. Norbert College. He earned a construction management degree from Curtin University in 2017.