Alison dos Santos celebrates his 400m hurdles win at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship (© Getty Images)
The world record-holder became the Ultimate champion as Alison dos Santos won a sensational 400m hurdles clash at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship Budapest 26 on Sunday (13).
Clocking 45.98, the Brazilian 26-year-old achieved the third-fastest performance of all time after striding away from USA’s world and Olympic champion Rai Benjamin on approach to the final barrier.
Benjamin secured his second Ultimate Championship runner-up spot, completing his 400m and 400m hurdles double by clocking 46.40 in only his third hurdles race of the season.
Norway’s former world record-holder Karsten Warholm clinched third place in 46.78 ahead of Emil Agyekum in a German record of 47.10.
In a battle between the three fastest 400m hurdlers of all time, Dos Santos was up against Benjamin and Warholm and they were evenly matched as they cleared the first couple of barriers.
Dos Santos and Benjamin had edged ahead by the third hurdle and from there it was a two-way fight.
They were shoulder to shoulder, Benjamin in lane six and Dos Santos in lane seven, as they reached the home straight, and then Dos Santos proved his power. He was a stride ahead when he got to the final hurdle and that barrier caused him no trouble, the 2022 world champion only increasing his advantage in the closing stages to cross the finish line clear ahead of his US rival.
The performance capped an incredible 2026 campaign for Dos Santos, who broke the world record when he clocked 45.80 during the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Zurich.
Only that run, and Warholm’s former world record of 45.94 set at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, are faster than the performance produced by Dos Santos to win the Ultimate crown.
“I opened the (World Athletics) app and I saw a post on the main page saying I had something like a 95 percent chance of winning. I thought wow, that is pretty high, so I just wanted to go out there and run as fast as I could,” said Dos Santos, who won the Diamond League title in Brussels eight days earlier. “I knew there would be pressure.
“When you are running on the Diamond League circuit, you are mostly concerned about your time – you think about running fast and staying focused on your lane but, at a championship, it is different. Running fast is important but winning is more important. I knew everybody would give their best and fight all the way to the line and I knew coming off the eighth hurdle into the final part of the race it was going to be a real battle.”
It was a fourth race in three days for Benjamin, who contested the 400m semifinals on Friday, the 400m final and 400m hurdles semifinals on Saturday and then the 400m hurdles final on Sunday.
“That was tough, but I had a lot of fun,” said Benjamin. “I just wanted to focus on winning today and I know Alison is in tough form right now and that he would be the one to go after. I had a good view of both him and Karsten – Karsten still ran fast, Alison ran super fast.
“What we are doing is so important and so impressive that people sometimes take it for granted. Karsten led the way to the world record, Alison followed up on it, and this was an amazing performance from all three of us today.”
Jess Whittington for World Athletics
