{"id":3415,"date":"2019-09-04T17:21:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T17:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/2019\/09\/04\/claes-and-couckuyt-were-pushing-each-other-to-faster-times\/"},"modified":"2019-09-04T17:21:24","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T17:21:24","slug":"claes-and-couckuyt-were-pushing-each-other-to-faster-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/2019\/09\/04\/claes-and-couckuyt-were-pushing-each-other-to-faster-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Claes and Couckuyt: \u2018We\u2019re pushing each other to faster times&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Both Claes and Couckuyt held a successful repetition in the King Baudouin Stadium last weekend at the Belgian championships. With a time of 55:36 Claes took the Belgian title and a ticket for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Couckuyt took silver in 55:46 zilver and also secured qualification for the Doha world championships, with Claes already qualified.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Belgian\u2019s two leading hurdles athletes are ambitious for Friday&#8217;s AG Memorial Van Damme. The 400 metre hurdles is a promotional event, with the IAAF Diamond League final having taken place last weekend in Zurich. \u201cI hope to go a little bit faster than at the Belgian championships,\u201d said Claes. \u201cThat was a good race, but far from perfect. I would like to take one fewer step between the sixth and seventh hurdle, which is a big time difference. Just like at the Belgian championships I hope Paulien and I will be able to push each other on. It\u2019s good to have competition, it makes us push each other to faster times.&quot;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cFor me it will be my first time competing at the Memorial,\u201d 22-year-old Couckuyt added. \u201cAs a child I came here every year to watch the event. It gave me a kick to watch the world\u2019s best athletes compete. My favourite part was heading down the stands to give the stars a high five. I also had an autograph book. I\u2019m sure meeting director Cedric Van Branteghem is in it!&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hanne Claes is also an ambassador for Plan International, which intensively collaborates with the&nbsp; AG Memorial Van Damme and supports the Equal Rights Run. \u201cIt\u2019s a very nice and important initiative,\u201d Claes explains. \u201cIt\u2019s important that girls receive the same opportunities as boys, also in sports. Football isn\u2019t just for boys and ballet isn&#8217;t just for girls. We have to break through those stereotypes. The Equal Rights Run, the AG Memorial Van Damme and Plan International are shining a light on that, and it\u2019s super important.&quot;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 400 metre hurdles will be the final discipline of Friday&#8217;s AG Memorial Van Damme. With...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-3415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brussels"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3415"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.wdl.uat-sports.swisstiming.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=3415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}