Thompson-Herah seals sprint double, Warholm smashes record

Thompson-Herah completed a second successive sprint double, Warholm won the 400m hurdles with an astonishing world record and American teenager Mu Athing crushed the 800 metres on an incredible day of Olympic athletics on Tuesday

Karsten Warholm and Elaine Thompson-Herah made history on a memorable day in Athletics at the Olympics, the Norwegian destroying his own world record in winning the 400 meters hurdles and the Jamaican completing a historic women’s sprint “double-double”.

Warholm stormed home in one of the all-time great Olympic track races, setting a new mark of 45.94 seconds.

His great rival, Rai Benjamin, ran the second-fastest time in history (46.17sec), and Brazil’s Alison dos Santos narrowly missed out ducking inside the old world record, clocking 46.72sec to take bronze.

The charismatic Warholm celebrated by ripping open his running vest in Superman-style.

“I always say that the perfect race doesn’t exist, but this is the closest I’ve come to a perfect race,” Warholm said.

The two-time world champion said he decided to set a furious pace from the gun in order to “stress” his rivals.

“After that I just ran for my life,” he said. “I would have died for that gold medal today.”

There were no such theatrics from ThompsonHerah, even though she ran the second-fastest time in history.

Her time of 21.53sec is only slower than Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record of 21.34sec set at the drug-tarnished 1988 Seoul Olympics.

“Oh my god, it’s amazing that I have ever seen this day,” said 29-year-old Thompson-Herah.

“That I could complete another double. I can’t believe it. I have had a rough week. I haven’t slept after the 100m final.