by Stuart Weir
Karsten Warholm, photo by Zurich Weltklasse
The highlight
Last night an athlete – a men’s 400 hurdler – asked me which event I was most looking forward to watching. Being a diplomat (sometimes) I said his! If I had given an honest, dispassionate answer, what would I have said? The first problem is that the requirements of the job can get in the way of watching. I know that seems strange to the athletics fan but sometimes watching is not a priority. My worst event this year was the Golden Gala in Rome where I literally did not see a single race. The mixed zone – where journalist meet athletes – was so far from my assigned seat, that having come down to the mixed zone to do an interview, I never got back to my seat!
Tonight was halfway there. I saw the early and late races but little inbetween. Having come to interview athletes from the women’s 400, I was still down there when the women’s 200, 1500 400H were run. I saw bit on TV but missed the experience of watching live in the stadium.
The best race that I saw was indeed the men’s 400m hurdles. Karsten Warholm won. Rai Benjamin who threated to take the season by storm ran a PR (46.98) and lost. Warholm won with 46.92.
When Warholm won in London 2017, it was a fluke, an aberration, it was weak year in the event. When he won the 2018 European Championship, he had no opposition. When he won the Oslo Diamond League, breaking the European record we began to sit up and take notice. Then tonight he won in another European record, a Diamond League Record and a World Lead, we had to rethink our frame of reference. Warholm is the favorite for Doha. No ifs, no buts!
He commented tonight: “It was crazy, I knew that I will do a good time but this race and with this new PB it´s just amazing and still the best will come. I was just pushed during the race and it was quite tough and the finish was hard. It´s an incredibly good feeling to run that time. Now I will be focusing on Doha and doing the same as usual – hard training. ln a way, I´d like to say goodbye and see you next season but it´s the world champs, the biggest thing this year. This race was so close it could have gone both ways. I push him and he pushes me, it´s amazing”.
Warholm with Jonathan Edwards, London 2017, photo by Stuart Weir
Warholm is a funny man. At one press conference this year he announced that he was from “the Scottish part of Norway” – he liked to make money. He said that he wanted to buy a race-horse – to make money – and was trying to persuade his coach to train the horse! This week he was asked what the winning time would be tonight, He replied that he was sure it would be between 40 and 50 seconds!
When I asked him earlier this year what winning the 2017 World Championship had done for me, he told me: “It has done a lot for my career. I have very good opportunities now and people are very interested in what I do, which is also a huge motivation. So the world championship was very good for me”.
He also told me that his approach to retaining his title was: “Just the same as I did in London. I just have to run and try to be at the top level. It is tougher because it’s late but the same time I will try to do everything in my power to try to do a really good race. First, I have to come to the final and then we will see. But anything can happen in a final”.
Anything could happen but would you bet against him winning?
