Two years ago, Karsten Warholm did not know what losing felt like, nor would he be stopped from soaring to greatness by any hurdle on the track across 400m. In a jaw-dropping 2021 season where the world champion, European champion and the European indoor champion did not lose a single race, Warholm broke the world record twice. The second came in the finals of the Tokyo Olympics, a mad 45.94s dash in one of the craziest races in Olympic history.
For an athlete too used to streamrolling rivals and records through the hurdles, ending seventh in a World Athletics Championships would therefore be an anomaly of equally epic proportions. So it was for the injury-hampered Norwegian at the 2022 Worlds in Eugene.
A year later in Budapest, normalcy has been restored. The one-lap hurdles has its king back on the throne.
Warholm won the 400m hurdles gold of the 2023 Worlds clocking 46.89s in the Hungarian capital for his third world title after also winning in 2017 London and 2019 Doha. That makes the 27-year-old, an avid lego-builder when not smashing records, the first male 400m hurdler to capture three world titles, going past the great Ed Moses, Felix Sanchez and Kerron McClement (two each).
Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands took silver in 47.34 while American Rai Benjamin — son of former West Indies fast bowler Winston Benjamin — clinched bronze in 47.56. Alison dos Santos, the Brazilian defending champion, hit two hurdles along the way to finish fifth.
All of them were architects of that epic Tokyo final, where silver medallist Benjamin (46.17) and third-placed dos Santos (46.72) gave Warholm company and a run for his money in what the champion believed was the closest he had come to a “perfect race”.
Budapest was far from Warholm’s perfect, yet enough for the top prize. Benjamin set the early pace followed by McMaster — he was fourth in Tokyo — before Warholm switched gears around the halfway point. He began to nudge ahead around the curve and, with Benjamin close behind, turned on “the turbos over the last 100m”.
“Every gold medal means a lot to me but this one is a bit extra special because I lost it last year,” Warholm said. “I had an injury and a tough season, so it’s a good little comeback story.”
Warholm’s story, which reached a pinnacle at the Tokyo Games, soon encountered a plateau.
After the Olympics, the Norwegian won two more meets in September but a hamstring injury stalled his sail. In his return to competition in June 2022 at the Rabat Diamond League, Warholm pulled up after the first hurdle. A ‘Did Not Finish’ was followed by a seventh-place finish at the Eugene Worlds (48.42). Where was the wonder-inducing Warholm the world witnessed?
He turned up this year alright. Warholm won his season opener at the Oslo Diamond League (46.52). Two more title-winning meets later, he registered the second fastest time of his career, a season-leading 46.51 in the Monaco Diamond League last month. That was a sign of a champion hungry to redeem himself and regain what he truly believed was his.
“I feel like the gold medal is back where it belongs,” Warholm said.
New PB for Parul, in final
Parul Chaudhary delivered a rare personal best by an Indian at the ongoing Worlds by clocking 9:24.29 to qualify for the women’s 3000m steeplechase final.
Up against a quality field in Heat 2, the 28-year-old finished fifth to seal an automatic berth — top five from the three heats made the cut — for the final on Sunday.
Parul, who broke the 3000m national record at the Sound Running meet in Los Angeles last month, bettered her earlier steeplechase personal best of 9:29.51 set at USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix in May this year.
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