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ENRIQUE MELLADO
Updated
Every now and then, sport gives us unique confrontations designed to break the rules and attract the attention of spectators. In the case of athletics, we saw a curious duel over 150 metres back in 1997 between the Olympic 100-metre champion, Donovan Bailey, and the 200- and 400-metre champion, Michael Johnson. It was an exceptional event that managed to capture the attention of the whole world.
Today we witnessed one of those peculiar clashes, even more atypical than that Bailey-Johnson, because in essence they were two sprinters. Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis and Karsten Warholm, world record holder in the 400m hurdles, faced each other in a 100-metre race. The truth is that Mondo gave his rival no chance. From the start, the Swede took the lead over the Norwegian, who perhaps thought that as he ran the metres, he would lose momentum.
But nothing could be further from the truth: Duplantis did not give up and finished with a great time of 10.37 seconds, which is not far from the Swedish record for the distance set in May by Henrik Larsson of 10.08. In any case, the world pole vault king in the 100 metres was monumental… and so was Warholm, who clocked a magnificent 10.47.
The duel, promoted by Puma and Red Bull, took place one day before the Diamond League in Zurich and gave a special focus on how fast Mondo Duplantis is currently, reaching 37 km/h when running with his pole in his hands. The pole vault record holder had already announced that he was very motivated by the challenge.
