Tokyo 2020, athletics: Five things about world record-breaking 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm

Karsten Warholm blitzed his own 400 metres hurdles world record in winning the Olympic title in Tokyo on Tuesday.

We pick out five things on the Norwegian who stopped the clock at a remarkable 45.94 seconds to take gold:

Beginner’s luck sparks life-time passion

As a boy 25-year-old Warholm eschewed traditional Norwegian sports like long-distance skiing, claiming he did not have the physique for it.

Running became a passion instead, his interest sparked by a friend in his home town Ulsteinvik, on the northwest coast of Norway.

“A friend of mine, he was in the track and field club and he came and said, ‘You need to join this race,’” Warholm told Track and Field News in December 2019.

“I was there in my jeans and this t-shirt that was way too big for me or whatever.

“So I joined the race and I won; I think it was 200m or something, just around a county building. That was when I started.

“So the rest is history, as they say.”

Partnership with veteran coach

The moment that set Warholm on the path to Tuesday’s astonishing performance began when he teamed up with veteran coach Leif Olav Alnes in 2015.

That partnership led to Warholm ditching his early efforts in the decathlon in favour of the hurdles in 2016.

Warholm told Alnes there was no…

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