In the city of Xiamen, China, Norwegian athlete Karsten Warholm has outdone his own previous best by setting a new record in the 300-meter hurdles, completing the race in 33.05 seconds during the start of the Diamond League meeting on Saturday.
Delivering an exceptional performance, Warholm surpassed his earlier unofficial record set in Oslo in 2021, which was the same year he achieved the 400-meter hurdles world record.
While the 300-meter hurdles is not part of the Olympic events, World Athletics recently announced that it will soon be recognized as an official world-record event.
Expressing his thoughts on the achievement, Warholm mentioned, “I was a little bit surprised by how easy my legs were feeling off the last bend. Of course you feel it a little bit in the end, but I managed to really push in the last 45 metres. This shows that the speed is there and the speed over the hurdles is there.”
The event also saw victories from other Olympic champions, including Faith Kipyegon in the 1,000 meters, Mondo Duplantis in pole vault, Yaroslava Mahuchikh in high jump, Beatrice Chebet in the 5,000 meters, and Valarie Allman in discus.
Faith Kipyegon came remarkably close to breaking the world record in the 1,000 meters, finishing with a time of 2:29.21, just shy of Svetlana Masterkova’s longstanding record of 2:28.98 set back in 1996.