Karsten Warholm could not feel his legs as he closed on the finish line. An accumulation of lactic acid is expected, and typically causes great discomfort for world-class athletes. But in this instance, as he chased his first Olympic title, Warholm pushed himself somewhere else entirely, where the pain was replaced by a sort of absence.
"I just ran for my life,” he said.
The result was one of the great races in Olympic history. Warholm, a 25-year-old Norwegian who grew up training to become a decathlete, obliterated his own world record in the men’s 400-meter hurdles, winning in 45.94 seconds at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday. Rai Benjamin of the United States was second in 46.17 seconds, a time that also eclipsed Warholm’s previous world record but was not good enough for gold.