Karsten Warholm and Mondo Duplantis stole the show on the fifth day of track and field competitions with their stunning gold-medal performances at the Tokyo Olympics.
Warholm reigned supreme in the men's 400-meter hurdles final in the afternoon session, while Duplantis dominated in the men's pole vault final in the evening session to capture their maiden Olympic gold medals.
Warholm stuns field with world record run
Warholm made history with a blistering run in the men's 400-meter hurdles, finishing with a time of 45.94 seconds to smash his previous world record. The brash Norwegian hurdler needed that world record pace as his rivals also produced stunning times of their own in the final.
Rai Benjamin, who ended up with the silver medal, finished with a time of 46.17 seconds. That is more than half a second faster than any hurdler has run in the history of this race. Bronze medal winner Alison dos Santos of Brazil finished in 46.72 seconds which would have been a world record five weeks ago.
Warholm's gold-medal-winning time eclipsed his world record set just a month ago by .76 seconds. To put more context into Warholm's mind-boggling time, Wayde van Niekerk's world record in the 400-meter race is 43.03 seconds. That is just 2.91 seconds faster than Warholm's mark in the same distance. However, it is important to mention that Warholm had to scale ten hurdles before posting his world record time.
Records have been tumbling left and right in the 400-meter hurdles this past month which is surprising given that the world record time of 46.78 seconds posted by American Kevin Young in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics appeared untouchable for 29 years.
That all changed on July 1 when Warholm brought the record down to 46.7 seconds. His rival Benjamin wasn't far behind from that mark heading into the Olympics as he ran 46.83 seconds in the trials to become the fourth man to crack the 47 mark in this event. That set the stage for their epic battle on Tuesday in what will go down as one of the all-time great Olympic races.
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Duplantis soars to gold in men's pole vault
Mondo Duplantis also stamped his class in the men's pole vault final later in the evening, soaring to Olympic gold with a clearance of 6.02 meters. He outlasted Christopher Nilsen, who was unsuccessful in that mark thrice, with the American settling for the silver medal with a mark of 5.97 meters.
Duplantis wanted to make more history on Tuesday as he attempted to break his world record of 6.18 meters. He nearly broke that mark with his first attempt at 6.19 meters, but Duplantis, unfortunately, made the slightest contact with the bar that forced it to fall.
Duplantis may not have broken the world record, but it was still a fantastic showing by the Swede in Tokyo. He needed only five jumps during the final to win the gold medal, clearing the bar with his initial attempt at heights of 5.55, 5.80, 5.92, 5.97, and 6.02 meters.
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