Warholm on track in bid for fourth Euro hurdles gold
BIRMINGHAM: Karsten Warholm kept his bid for a second gold of the European championships in Birmingham and a fourth 400m hurdles title on track as he sailed through qualifiers on Wednesday.
BIRMINGHAM: Karsten Warholm maintained his quest for back-to-back European championship golds and a fourth 400m hurdles title as he cleared the hurdles in qualifying on Wednesday. The Norwegian athlete, who set the world record of 45.94 seconds in the 400m hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, ran 48.01 seconds in the semi-finals at the Alexander Stadium.
The final is scheduled for 1940 GMT on Friday. Warholm, who has won two world titles and three consecutive European championships, now holds the European record of 46.98 seconds, set in Rome in 2022. If he wins in Birmingham, he will become the sole European record holder. Warholm has only been beaten once in the event since the 2016 Olympics, finishing seventh in the 2022 world championships.
The 30-year-old leads the 2026 European standings by almost one second from Germany's Emil Agyekum, who is the only other European to have broken the 48-second barrier this year. In the men's 800m semi-finals, Ireland's Mark English set a championship record of 1min 43.49 seconds, just edging out the previous best of 1:43.84 set by East Germany's Olaf Beyer at the 1978 Prague championships.
English, a two-time European bronze medallist, said the record means more to others than to him, but he is ready to compete again in Thursday's final.
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