The 400m Men's Hurdles had some heady anticipation about it. 3 men capable of breaking records and setting new standards, were at the prime of their careers - Karsten Warholm, Rai Benjamin & Abderrehman Samba. Warholm was at the forefront of this trio having just set the WR @46.70 in Oslo in July 2021. Rai Benjamin and Samba too had broken the 47 second barrier and on their day were capable of giving the Norwegian prodigy a run for his money.
The heats were on point with all of them winning comfortably. The semis saw Alison Dos Santos running 47.31 to eclipse Samba and bringing himself into the mix. Warholm and Benjamin ran in the other semis with the Norwegian clipping Benjamin at the end to send a message. So onto the finals with all 4 men believing that they had a chance for a medal. The race exploded into life with Warholm setting off at a blistering pace. He had overhauled a few runners in front of him including Samba. But Benjamin wasn't out of it yet, he reeled in the Norwegian and in the penultimate hurdle was almost at par with him leading to the commentator excitedly calling out "here comes Benjamin". But Warholm showed his finishing prowess and brute strength when he pulled away after the last hurdle and won with a 2m gap over Benjamin and smashing his own WR and dipping under the 46 second mark for the first time in human history.
Why is this race so remarkable? This race saw all 3 medalists breaking the existing OR and the top 2 broke the existing WR. Benjamin smashed the old WR by half a second but came in second. Dos Santos finished in 46.72 just 0.02 outside the old WR and won bronze. Six out of the 8 competitors set new National records and PB's.
Watching this live on TV was amazing and the commentary team were caught up in the moment and made some bold statements right there... "Is this the greatest performance in an Olympic final of all time?" , "If this doesn't encourage young boys and girls to get out and train for the olympics - nothing will ", "This performance rivals Bolts run in Beijing or Rudhisha's 100 sec of the 800 in london"
The 400m hurdles has seen one of the longest and most dominant streaks in sports history when the legendary Edwin Moses won 122 consecutive races over a 9 year period. During the streak he won gold medals in the 1976 and 1984 Olympic games and set the WR in the event 4 times.
Warholm might find it difficult to match the legend Moses's streak but has definitely established his pedigree as the greatest 400m hurdler of our time and we can hope that Benjamin, Samba and Dos Santos continue to push him and themselves to greater heights.
No comments:
Post a Comment