The First Duel

When Karsten Warholm enters the blocks against, among others, Bislett debutant Rai Benjamin and Alison dos Santos on Thursday, June 12, it will be a very special race.

Now, the three best 400-meter hurdlers in history meet for the first star-studded clash over 300 meters hurdles.
The event was granted official status earlier this year and will eventually have a ratified world record. But it’s not new. Karsten Warholm has run it several times before, most recently at the Wanda Diamond League meet in Xiamen on April 26, where he improved his own world-best time to 33.05. To win this time, though, it will likely take a time in the 32-second range.

Now, the first major showdown awaits, with the top three all-time performers in the 400-meter hurdles lining up:

Karsten Warholm. World record holder with 45.94 and reigning world champion. He also set the world-leading time of the year with 47.28 at the DL meet in Shanghai Keqiao on May 3.

Rai Benjamin. Reigning Olympic champion and owner of the second-fastest time ever in the event with 46.17.

Alison dos Santos. 2022 World Champion and third-fastest all-time with a personal best of 46.29.

Their personal bests are the three fastest times ever run in the 400-meter hurdles, and between them, they own the 18 fastest races in the event’s history.
Now, a new distance is about to crown its first official king.

I believe the introduction of the 300-meter hurdles can help bring in new athletes now that the long hurdles expand from one to two events, says Warholm, who is very pleased that the 300-meter hurdles are now recognized as an official discipline.

It will be an amazing weekend with the 300mh in Oslo on Thursday and then the 400mh in Stockholm on Sunday. And with the three fastest in history. This also being my first time racing in these two historic meets, makes it even more exciting. What else can you ask for said Rai Benjamin in a quote.

The duel between Warholm and Benjamin will be their ninth “final” face-off and the tenth time they meet, including their semifinal clash at the Tokyo Olympics. In head-to-head races, Warholm leads 5–4. In finals, they are tied at 4–4.

Warholm has triumphed in their encounters at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, and the 2019 Diamond League final in Zürich. Benjamin, meanwhile, defeated Warholm at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, the 2024 Olympics in Paris (less than a year ago), and in Diamond League meetings in Eugene (2023) and Monaco (2024).
After the race in Oslo, the athletes head to Stockholm, where another blockbuster duel awaits, this time in the main event, the 400-meter hurdles. That might suit Sweden’s top long hurdler, Carl Bergström, just fine. His strength lies in the longer of the two distances.
– Yeah, I don’t think I’ll benefit from the introduction of the 300-meter hurdles, he says.
And the results reflect that: the time gap between Warholm and Bergström was 1.70 seconds in Xiamen and 1.44 seconds in Shanghai Keqiao. Warholm ran a much stronger race over the shorter distance, but Bergström will likely have more to offer when there are ten hurdles on the track.