SIX TIMES SINCE autumn ’19 have the three fastest men ever to circle the track in the 400H met in the same race. Following the Tokyo Olympic final of ’21 the trio’s subsequent meetings on four occasions have been celebrated correctly as epic.
Now after taking round 6 at the Monaco DL, Rai Benjamin hopes to ride momentum from two straight wins in the unofficial series to a gold-hued medal upgrade in Paris.
The clash three summers ago under the five rings in the Japanese capital stood out as surely the men’s highlight of that Games — a Karsten Warholm World Record win from Benjamin’s 46.17, still the Nos. 1 and 2 all-time clockings, and Alison dos Santos at 46.72, 0.06 under Kevin Young’s WR that had stood for 29 years until just a month before Tokyo.
The most recent of the trio’s showdowns, that Monaco meeting last week, could not have been a more gripping prequel to Paris Olympics drama. Sprinting powerfully off the final hurdle neck and neck with Warholm, Benjamin finished about a foot in front, 46.67–46.73. In 3rd came ’22 world champion dos Santos at 47.18.
The victory raised the American’s head-to-head versus the Norwegian (they have met 7 times in all) to 3–4 and his tally against the Brazilian to 7–2.
Consider this about the race, an unmatched gathering of the three defending Olympic medalists less than a month before the next Olympic final: a 47.18, dos Santos’s time in Monaco, was never a non-winner in 400H history before the DL Final of ’19. That competition in Zürich 5 years ago was, coincidentally, the first-ever Warholm-Benjamin meeting and the first race with two men sub-47. This combination of stats alone distills the transformation wrought by the “Big 3.”
This isn’t lost on the principals. “I was talking to Karsten on the way here,” Benjamin told reporters at the pre-Monaco press conference. “I was telling him how I feel like the fans and the media don’t appreciate how crazy what we’re doing is, and we’ve gotten so used to seeing 46’s and 46’s. I mean, we’ve opened up our seasons under the previous World Record, which is just insane and hadn’t been done for years, and now we’re just cranking out 46’s like it’s just, you know, a normal day.”
At the presser near Monaco’s opulent casinos, the three hurdlers laughed easily and traded jokes, celebrating that, together, they have elevated their event.
“It’s been a crazy journey,” Warholm said, “and I think also to have people to race against that always keep you on your toes is kind of a blessing in disguise, as well, because we’ve taken this to — you know what I would say, and I’m maybe a bit biased but — the highest level of any event in track & field right now. I’m maybe cocky, but that’s how I feel.
“I think when we are going to look back at this era of the 400m hurdles, I think we’re all gonna be grateful that we had this level of nerve and competition. And now we’re all here ready to race in Monaco tomorrow.”
Monaco for Benjamin — racing just 12 days after a spectacular 46.46 (No. 5 all-time) Olympic Trials win 9 time zones to the west — was planned as “fine-tuning.” Speaking immediately after he had won, he said, “It wasn’t a clean race for myself. I’m not sure what the other guys thought, but definitely a fine-tune, a dress rehearsal for the real day.”
Track being a mental game, as well, Benjamin and his coaching team, Joanna Hayes and Quincy Watts, surely intended his appearance on European soil as a show of force, a demonstration of confidence. The New York native USC grad, who’ll turn 27 a day after the Paris Opening Ceremony, is keenly aware that while his four global medals since ’19 speak eloquently for his ability, only gold will loudly shout it out to the wider public.
“I know what I’m capable of,” Benjamin told T&FN in March of ’23 “At some point something has to give. That’s my optimistic view on it. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither was any building that has ever stood. So you gotta lay the bricks.”
Laying the brick of hopping a 12-hour flight to take on his rivals a month ahead of the Games was “kind of a tough decision to make since it’s so far,” Benjamin confessed, “and, I mean, the jet lag hit me really bad yesterday. I’ve been sleeping the entire day, so I’m just happy to come out here feeling tired and get the win today.”
Reading between the lines, the mission to Monaco had much to do with dispelling any sense the competition may have that he ducks them on the DL circuit.
Not the case at all, he says. “Hopefully I find a little magic this season and get it done in Paris. That’s always the goal.” But circumstances, untimely injury and illness threw up hurdles that were tough to get over in ’22 and ’23.
“Unfortunately,” Benjamin told the media in Monaco, “I’ve had things happen in season these past couple years that have prevented me from really training how I wanted to. Instead, Benjamin found himself “taking trips to Munich [and the office of doctor-to-sports-stars Hans Müller-Wohlfahrt] to get all that stuff fixed, and it’s just been a really frustrating, 3–4 years.
“’21, I was fine, I lost [laughs]. I admit that.
“And every other year after that it’s just been a struggle. So, you know, it feels good having the world-leading time, but I know that there’s more to be done and if it’s not here at this meet, then it’s the next meet.”
As ever-dangerous as his competitors are, Benjamin’s Pre Classic/DL Final triumph last September over Warholm, with dos Santos 4th, set a new tone, with his roll begun there now carried near to the opening of the Games in Paris.
“I’m a bit behind the curve in terms of obviously an individual gold medal,” Benjamin told the scribes and ‘content creators’ with phone cameras. I think for me the focus has been just getting the races that I need to get in as close to home as possible because I’m at the mercy of having my coaches be collegiate coaches so they can’t travel as well as, say, other professional coaches can. So I’m limited in that area of being able to move around.
“I think Allison could be in Florida, he could be in California. Karsten, his coach, you guys go to Tenerife? You guys can go wherever you want, but I have to stay in California. And I think because of that and the proximity of Europe to Los Angeles, California, it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to come here for 3, 4 days to get one meet just to go back because that interrupts training. I have to acclimate and I have to take care of my body as well too. I think people underestimate sitting on a plane for 13 hours. It’s crazy.
“So it’s just one of those things where you just have to be smart and you have to do things that are, that it looks like I’m dodging — ’cause I feel like that’s kind of been the talk for the past couple years, that I dodge these guys and I pull out of races and all that stuff. But I mean it’s one of those things where I have to do what’s best for me and what’s gonna put me in the best situation to run fast.”
Monaco, it seems, was about something else: a test against the best and putting all “the talk” to bed.
What next? “Going back to America,” he declared, his work at Stade Louis II complete, “going back home tomorrow, early in the morning, leaving at 4:00. So I probably won’t sleep tonight again. Just go back, get some rest, get in my bed and fine-tune some things at practice.” Then “come back and get acclimated in Paris and get a solid sleep schedule down so I can do well.”
