These three men are used to meeting only for special occasions. In Budapest on Wednesday, the infernal trio of 400 meters hurdles – Karsten Warholm, Rai Benjamin and Alison Dos Santos – met again in full two years after the 2021 Olympic final and one year after the 2022 world final.
And during this third consecutive high mass, the winner is the 27-year-old Norwegian world record holder in 46.80 seconds. Warholm becomes triple world champion. If Benjamin got involved in the fight until the last meters to finally finish third (47 s 56), a fourth thief interfered in this fight to now form a quartet. The runner from the British Virgin Islands, Kyron McMaster (26), is vice-world champion in 47.34. Jamaican Roshwan Clarke (48s 07).
On August 3, 2021, at the Tokyo Olympics, Karsten Warholm beat his two favorite opponents and at the same time became the first and only hurdler to go under 46 seconds on the lap (45 s 94). On July 19, 2022, Alison Dos Santos, the man in form that year, took advantage of the physical concerns of his rivals to become the second Brazilian world champion in the history of athletics.
Another disappointment for Benjamin
Always placed but never a winner, the American Rai Benjamin collects the podiums and the frustrations since the victory flees him. He has just won three silver medals and a bronze since his first place as world vice-champion in 2019 in Doha. The 26-year-old runner has only known the joy of gold medals as a team, with the USA 4 x 400 meter relay at the 2019 Worlds in Doha and at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. going to be very hard, I will have to be very strong to win. These guys are very good and seem limitless,” he predicted before these world championships.
To win in Budapest, Karsten Warholm has come a long way. In the previous round, he benefited from the clemency of the referees, that granted to the champion, despite a complaint which concerned the disputed crossing of a hurdle. Best time in the semi-finals (47 s 09) and holder of the best performance of the year (46 s 51), the world record holder left no room for chance in the final.
Before 2016, Karsten Warholm had never tried what has become his favorite discipline. He is trained as a decathlete. He emerged for the first time at the highest level of athletics at the world championships in London in 2017. His first title at the time was even more surprising, with a time well below what he now directs (48 s 35).
Two people are very important in the career of Warholm, who grew up on the small island of Hareidlandet in the middle of a fjord 500 kilometers from Oslo: his mother, Kristine Goline Haddal, who manages his relations with the press and his coach, Leif Olav Alnes, who developed his training program.
“Training under Leif [Olav Alnes] has been a blessing because he knows what to do. He repeats to me: do not focus too much on all the things where you are bad because it is the things where you are good that will make you win races, ”confided Karsten Warholm last year to World.
Two world champions in the pole vault
Made history in 2021 with a world record that ranks as Usain Bolt’s 9.58s in the 100m, Bob Beamon’s 8.90m in the long jump or Sergei Bubka’s 6m in the jump pole, the Norwegian assumed his desire to always do more: “I want to see how good I can be and I feel like I haven’t done everything I could do yet. “He keeps his promises and next year he will be more than ever a candidate for his own succession. With the idea of ??improving his world record at the Stade de France in mind.
In the women’s pole vault, the show was also there. The Australian Nina Kennedy and the American Katie Moon fought a fierce battle by adding a dose of sportsmanship. The only two pole vaulters to have crossed the 4.90 meter mark finished the competition tied for first place, declining a jump-off and therefore the possibility of a tie. Finland’s Wilma Murto placed third with a jump of 4.80 meters.
Conversely, the final of the women’s 400 meters was the subject of another lone rider. In the absence of the American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the Dominican runner Marileidy Paulino flew over the lap in 48 s 76, her personal best. The Polish Natalia Kaczmarek and the Barbadian Sana Williams are relegated to almost a second in 49 s 57 and 49 s 60.