Just under two months after he opened the 2025 Wanda Diamond League season with a bang in Xiamen, Karsten Warholm was back to his world-beating best at his home meeting in Oslo on Thursday evening.
Warholm clocked 33.05 in Xiamen back in April, launching athletics’ premier one-day series with a world best performance.
As he lined up in front of the home crowd at the Bislett Games for the sixth leg of the season this week, hopes were high that he could make history again.
Yet Warholm also faced a tougher task in Oslo, with Rai Benjamin and Alison Dos Santos also on the startlist.
It was a rare trilateral summit between the 400m hurdles world record holder Warholm, the 2024 Olympic champion Rai Benjamin and the reigning Diamond League champion Dos Santos.
Sure enough, Warholm had to dig deep. Having burst out of the blocks to take an early lead the Norwegian found himself with Benjamin breathing down his neck as he came out of the bend.
Yet he is not the fastest man in the world for nothing, and Warholm showed his class on the home straight, powering away from the American to clock another astonishing world best of 32.67.
It was the first time in history that a man had broken the 33-second barrier in the 300m hurdles, making it the OMEGA Moment of the Meeting in Oslo.
“I was rather worried about how much Rai was closing on me but I knew I could push on over the last hurdle to home. I usually fade at the end of the 400 so the 300 suits me to some degree,” said Warholm, who will face Benjamin and Dos Santos again in the 400m hurdles in Stockholm on Sunday.
“The crowd was amazing as ever and the atmosphere was something else and I am just so happy that I could perform at my best in front of the support; it means a lot to me.”
