Norway’s Karsten Warholm produced a devastating performance to smash his own world record and win the Olympic men’s 400 metres hurdles gold on Tuesday.
Touted as one of the stand-out events of the 10-day track and field programme at the Olympic Stadium, the cream of a very good hurdling crop did not fail to deliver in a thrilling race despite stifling midday heat and humidity in Tokyo.
Warholm clocked a remarkable 45.94 seconds, pulverising his previous world best of 46.70sec. To put that performance into perspective, only four runners in history have even clocked sub-47sec times, let alone sub-46.
American arch-rival Rai Benjamin won silver in 46.17sec, with Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos claiming bronze in 46.72, both regional records that also smashed their previous personal bests.