After months of anticipation, Mondo Duplantis beat Karsten Warholm to win their head-to-head 100-meter sprint and claim bragging rights over his fellow world-record holder, clocking a time of 10.37 seconds.
- Duplantis clocked a time of 10.37 secs at Stadion Letzigrund, Zürich
- Swedish pole vaulter took on Norwegian 400-meter hurdler in an eagerly-awaited 100-meter sprint
- The two world record holders faced off at Letzigrund Stadium the day before the Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League meeting
The event, hosted in collaboration between PUMA, Red Bull and Weltklasse Zürich, marked the culmination of a long-standing back-and-forth between two iconic athletes, which had been simmering since July 2023. Duplantis’ victory means Warholm will wear his opponent’s Swedish Athletics Association kit at tomorrow’s Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League meet as part of a friendly wager between two of track and field’s biggest global stars.
Speaking after winning the race, Duplantis said: “I knew it, I believed in it. Don’t play with me. That’s the only thing that’s really on my mind right now. I believed, I just had to wake everybody else up.”
Commenting on the result of the race, Warholm said: “For myself, it wasn’t a great race. But I gave it all that I had. Mondo was surprisingly good, so I‘ve got to give it to him. He was a real fighter there, he got out the blocks fast and I never got to catch up, so that’s how it goes. But it was very good and I’m proud that we put on such an event. It was great.”
The race transpired after a short clip shared on social media last summer, in which the pair discussed the prospect of racing one another, had sports fans across the globe fizzing with excitement. Tonight, the intriguing prospect became a reality as two of track and field’s biggest global stars finally got to see who is fastest.
