PARIS (Reuters) - Rai Benjamin finally got the better of great rival Karsten Warholm to win the Olympic 400 metres hurdles title on Friday, continuing the United States’ athletics gold rush and foiling the Norwegian’s bid to be the second man to retain the title.
Benjamin, second behind Warholm in the Tokyo final and twice adrift of him when collecting two silvers and a bronze in world championships, always looked in control and equalled his season’s best 46.46 seconds.
World record holder Warholm, who has struggled to hit those stratospheric levels this season, battled all the way home for silver in 47.06.
Brazilian Alison dos Santos, who took bronze in Tokyo but made Friday’s final only as a fast loser, got the bronze again in 47.26 as the three quickest men ever to run the event filled the podium.
"I can't believe I actually finally did it," the 27-year-old Benjamin told reporters.
"It just happened at the right moment. My family is here, my friends are here. To do it in front of them means so much to me. I'm just so excited."
Asked when he felt he had the race in the bag, he said five metres before the line.
"I thought I'd better dip but no one was there so I thought 'wait a minute, hold on, I'm actually doing this'. And I did it. Just a great feeling.
"It does suck when people doubt your abilities, not knowing the full story of what's going on. I've been battling injury, there's a lot of stuff that happens off the track that nobody really sees."
Benjamin's gold took his country's Paris athletics tally to 11, with another 10 silver and eight bronze.
That is in stark contrast with France. The presence of local favourite Clement Ducos in the field cranked up the volume as the home fans were desperate to see a first French athletics medal, but he fell short in fourth, leaving them only Saturday's final session to try to break the drought.
(This story has been corrected to fix the U.S. gold medals tally to 11 in paragraph 10)
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)
