When, after all the pre-race theatrics, the starting gun was fired in front of the packed grandstand of the Letzigrund Stadium, there could only be one winner of the 100-meter showpiece race on the eve of the world-class main race. Wanda Diamond League Meeting in Zurich on Wednesday evening (4).
“I’m not saying I’m going to kick your ass, but I’m going to ask a lot of you,” Mondo Duplantis dared to say when he challenged Karsten Warholm during a training session before the Monaco Diamond League last year.
The young Swede, who has beaten the pole vault world record ten times, offered the fastest 400-metre hurdler of all time more than just a good run after the pair had removed the boxer’s dressing gowns in which they had entered the arena.
Duplantis then gave his Norwegian friend a kick in the butt, took off, led from the starting gun to the finish tape and crossed the finish line as the clear winner in 10.37 (0.1 m/s) – another record, this time a personal one, 0.2 m faster than his personal best set in high school in 2018.
Warholm achieved a time of 10.47, 0.02 under his personal best set six years ago.
“I have to give credit to Mondo – he beat me fair and square,” said the three-time world champion in the 400-meter hurdles. “He was really quick out of the starting blocks. It was a great race.”
The spectators in the stands were well entertained. Among them was Fred Kerley, the 2022 100-meter world champion from the USA, who practiced starts with Duplantis to prepare for the big showdown in Zurich.
“I’m pretty excited,” said a jubilant Duplantis. “I haven’t touched a bar in training since the Olympics, only blocks.”
“I love sprinting. I think it’s the greatest thing ever. There’s no better feeling than that split second before the starting gun goes off and you’re just there waiting for it. When it happens, everything just gets released. It’s like the biggest bundle of energy you could ever have.”
Warholm also had expert help.
“I actually sent Usain Bolt my block start videos,” he revealed. “He said, ‘You shouldn’t go out of the blocks. You should push.'”
After Warholm did not give it his all on the home stretch on Wednesday, he will have to wear the Swedish uniform in the 400-meter hurdles on the Zurich track on Thursday; Duplantis had given him this task after his victory.
Earlier in the evening – competing in Zurich’s massive main train station – Nina Kennedy needed just 95 minutes to add her third consecutive victory at the Zurich Diamond League meeting to the growing list of achievements in her little black book. That was less than half the time of the marathon pole vault final in Paris last month, from which she emerged with Olympic gold.
A direct jump of 4.87 m guaranteed the Australian with the Midas touch victory in the opening round of the world-class main meeting on Thursday, but that was not the end of the drama.
While her Olympic colleagues Alysha Newman and Katie Moon both dropped out with their best jumps of the evening of 4.82m, with the Canadian finishing second ahead of her US competitor after the countdown, Kennedy raised the bar to 4.95m after clearing 4.92m on her first shot.
Her two targets were the six-year-old Oceanian record of 4.94m held by New Zealand’s Eliza McCartney and the world best of 4.92m held by British indoor champion Molly Caudery.
Kennedy, who set an Australian record of 4.91m at Central Station last year, cleared the bar on her first attempt at 4.95m, but the competition was temporarily halted when a fault was discovered with the posts.
The joint outdoor world champion was allowed to repeat her first attempt, but was not successful with that or her remaining chance.
Nevertheless, Kennedy not only secured the Zurich hat-trick, but also his fourth Diamond League victory of the season – after victories in London, Monaco and Rome – and travels to the final in Brussels on 13 and 14 September next week with a run of seven consecutive victories in all competitions.
“I love Zurich so much,” said the 27-year-old, whose only previous failure was a first attempt at 4.82m. “It’s a fantastic place to jump. I wanted to come here and jump 4.95, but unfortunately I didn’t manage it. I don’t know if I’m unbeatable. These girls push me. I had to work hard today.”
Newman, the Olympic bronze medalist, took second place thanks to a height of 4.82 m on her second jump – just one centimetre under her Canadian indoor record.
Moon, who won the outdoor world championships with Kennedy in Budapest last year and finished second behind the Australian in Paris, needed three attempts.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics
