The facts and how to watch the 100m race

Swedish-American pole vaulter Armand Duplantis just raised the bar, jumping 6.26 metres in August. Norwegian 400m hurdle specialist Karsten Warholm set the world record in the 400m hurdles with his 45.94s in Tokyo in 2021. And there’s one more thing they share: a fierce drive to win and never back down.

01

How to watch Karsten vs Mondo?

Neither Karsten Warholm nor Mondo Duplantis have raced in the 100m sprint recently. So, who can actually win? Let’s take a look at their respective strengths and weaknesses ahead of the big showdown to find out.

02

Why are they running a 100m race?

Something that started as a bit of friendly beef has turned into a spectacle that the whole world will be watching with anticipation. It all started during a training session at the Monaco Diamond League in 2023 when Duplantis challenged Warholm to a sprint after some playful banter.

“He was saying that I looked fast, and I was like, ‘Let’s race’,” Duplantis says. Warholm accepted the challenge after Duplantis claimed he could win. “With my ego and how highly I think of myself, I needed to accept,” the Norwegian explains.

Both athletes run and jump for a living, but a 100-metre sprint is a whole different game: Duplantis needs to find stamina to run more than twice his usual distance, and Warholm needs to find acceleration to get up to top speed way quicker than normal.

03

Karsten Warholm’s biggest strengths: “Mondo, watch out!”

400 metre hurdles is known as a man-killer event. It’s one of the toughest distances there is. And Warholm is the absolute best at it. He’s won the World Championship three times and has an Olympic gold medal from Tokyo and a silver medal from Paris.

There are a lot of things that speak in Warholm’s favour in this sprint: Warholm has a 400 metre hurdles season’s best of 46.70 seconds. So, stamina for a 100 metre distance is no problem. He is an expert at using starting blocks and is used to the race format of a gun going off, which requires you to go at the exact right moment.

However, his acceleration speed might be a weakness. He is used to reaching top speeds that will last him four times as long. Can he break the habit of saving power and go all in from the start?

Karsten reflects on his chances: “So I think both the block starts and my top speed is going to be my biggest strengths when I meet up with Mondo.” He believes that Duplantis is underestimating his sprinting skills, going from 400m to 100m: “Mondo, you’ll have to watch out for me because I’m going to be fast.”

Underestimation or not, Mondo knows he’s up against a giant: “I think Karsten is a killer. He’s a mad competitor, and he shows up when he needs to show up. I mean, you can just look at his resume and see what he’s done in the past years.”

Mondo Duplantis is the greatest pole vaulter of all time. He has broken the world record ten times since 2020, taking two Olympic gold medals and two World Championship wins. But what does pole vaulting have to do with running? A lot, actually. The faster you accelerate on the runway, the more upward energy you can produce once you plant the pole and get inverted.

In fact, one of Duplantis’ main strengths as an athlete is his top speed and his acceleration power. Reaching top speeds of 10.3mps he runs faster than any other pole-vaulter, ever. He is used to racing a short distance, which means he can get up to that speed very quickly, too. Duplantis likes his odds: “I think that there is definitely a possibility that I can get Warholm in the in the first 50 metres,” he says.

Another advantage for Duplantis is that he trains like a sprinter several times a week: “I definitely do more sprint training than I think people know, and I think that I’m going to surprise a lot of people. I’m capable of running a very competitive race”, he says. “I would never have challenged Warholm to a race if I didn’t think I could win.”

However, with Duplantis’ runway being around 40 metres long, he needs to find the stamina to keep his top speed for over twice his usual distance when racing 100 metres. Also, he is not very used to block and gun starts. Although he might surprise a few people: “I think that a lot of people are definitely going to think that I’m not going to be as comfortable in the blocks as Warholm is, which I guess is a fair point, but I do a little bit of block training every once in a while.”

Warholm knows Duplantis is a real threat: “I think Mondo’s strengths are going to be his acceleration, especially in the first 40-50 metres.” He adds: “Mondo is a good friend and an athlete that I respect a lot. He’s been taking his event to new heights, winning a lot of medals, breaking records and I truly respect that about him.”

05

The conclusion: Who will win the race?

The math is pretty simple. The conclusion harder.

Warholm runs 400m hurdles in 46.70 seconds. If you take that number straight up, it means that he runs 100 metres in 11.67 seconds. Take away having to run another 300 metres and jump over hurdles; that number will decrease. In fact, the last time he ran a 100 metre race was in 2017, and he clocked 10.49 seconds.

Duplantis, on the other hand, can reach speeds of 10.3mps on the 40-metre-long pole vaulting runway. If he manages to stay around that speed for another 60 metres, his time will be very similar to Warholm’s. His last recorded 100-metre race was in 2018, his final year of high school, where he posted 10.57 seconds.

The threat is real, so let’s see who has the most strengths and the less weaknesses

Both athletes could technically beat the other. They are fast sprinters and athletes with strong mental willpower. Both hate too loose. Both want to win. The likelihood is this race will come down to milliseconds. As Warholm puts it: “The threat is real, so let’s see who has the most strengths and the less weaknesses.”