Karsten Warholm: "46 seconds are a mental barrier"

Karsten Warholm appeared before the screen as a healthy, gentle, enthusiastic young man, happy to be Karsten Warholm, world record holder of the 400 meter hurdles, the most lactating, most stormy, most technical race there is.

The empire of athletes of Caribbean descent, suddenly invaded by a 25-year-old red-haired Norwegian who frowns when asked what led him to practice athletics in a country that only makes ski legends.

"I'm from western Norway," he replied, during a meeting via Zoom, before embarking for Tokyo.

“We don't have a lot of snow there.

Just rain.

In Ulsteinvik, the small town where I was born, there is a good atmosphere for playing soccer and athletics.

I stopped playing football at 18 so as not to injure myself and now, thanks to my marks, athletics in my country is becoming popular.

At the moment we are not Jamaica, but we are building things ”.

More information

• F-1 technology at the feet of the record holder

• Warholm, Olympic gold under 46 seconds

• The fall of the oldest record

His smile only darkened when one of his interlocutors raised the question that transported him to the bottom of his great obsession.

How do you imagine the perfect race?

“Every time I have a good race I say to myself: 'this was perfect'. But then there are points where I feel I can improve, ”he observed. “I have focused on executing a quick exit. I want to run the 45 meters faster to the first fence. I'm struggling to maintain a 13-step rhythmic pattern between hurdles. Although sometimes I take one more step before the ninth and tenth, I would like to always keep 13 steps and I would like to be able to finish stronger. I am fast. I feel like I'm trying but I think I'll never be able to do it. I will try to get as close as possible, to see how far I go ”.

He paused, as if discovering an idea that bothers him, and concluded: “It's strange. Sometimes I finish a race and I feel like I have nailed it but the weather is bad. Other times I get confused, I lose control a bit, and I have a good time. This works in a peculiar way. It's about having a nice day. When the stars collide, you make a world record ”.

Ten days ago Warholm was priming his brain to cause a clash of stars. On July 1, he had broken by seven hundredths the world record that Keving Young set in stone 29 years ago at the Barcelona Games (46.78 seconds). He was about to become the first Norwegian to win a track and field medal and would do so with another world record after a lightning start and a rhythmic 13-step pattern between hurdles that he maintained until the last jump. This time, with a cut of 36 hundredths that would introduce him to the unknown universe that opens below the imaginary limit of 46 seconds: 45.94s.

The threat of Rai Benjamin, the 24-year-old American hurdler who had run the

trials

in 46.83s, served as a spur. "I saw him at

trials

and he gave me the impression that he had the world record inside," Warholm said. "He is someone who will give me a boost."

"In the

trials

I did not go out to break the record," Benjamin warned before traveling to Japan, in another conference via Zoom.

“My goal was just to qualify for the team.

I wanted to be cautious.

I feel like we are all getting high.

Once someone rises to this level of greatness with a 46.7s mark, we all feel like we're close.

We all want to get over it.

And we all want to be a part of this.

We feel that we are part of history.

It's crazy to see so many people running so fast at the same historical moment.

Warholm, Dos Santos, Abderraham Samba, me ... This is the best group of stuntmen there has ever been.

Never has it been run so fast collectively in the history of this event.

I just hope we go even faster ”.

"That feeling of living on the edge"

Benjamin sensed that in Tokyo he would run faster than Warholm's 46.70s in Oslo.

What he did not suspect is that he would fly to complete the lap in 46.17s, nor that his rival would fall below 45s.

"I'm glad I brought the 400m hurdles to this level," said Warholm, as if also anticipating the magical moment.

“When so many people started running so fast, we suddenly began to think that it would be possible to drop below 46. It was a huge physical barrier, but it was also a mental barrier.

When you approach, people start to think that it is possible and they all push each other.

We push each other.

Once I broke the record I started to think it was possible and I think others started to consider it too.

Who knows how far we can go in the future?

Everything will depend on the degree of alienation exhibited by the protagonists of a plot made for lovers of pain.

“I love the intrinsic details of the race,” says Benjamin, when asked what led him to dedicate himself to the most tortuous of tests, “I am passionate about the degree of concentration it demands, the fact that it is dangerous, because if you think too much for more than a second things can change dramatically for you.

It's that feeling of living on the edge.

Pain is pain, it will never go away.

It doesn't matter if you run in 49 seconds or 46. It will hurt the same.

My philosophy is not how much it hurts but how fast it happens.

You learn to love the 400 hurdles after a while.

I love the challenge ”.

Whatever the future holds, Warholm and Benjamin, after Tokyo, are unforgettable

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