Dos Santos Turns the Tables on Warholm as Hurdles Season Heats Up
Alison dos Santos ran 46.48 seconds at the Brazilian Championships in São Paulo in July 2026, reclaiming the fastest 400m hurdles time of the year and tightening a rivalry that has defined the event all season.
That mark, a championship record that shaved 0.13 seconds off the previous best at the meet, put the Brazilian back ahead of Karsten Warholm in the 2026 world lists — a position the Norwegian had briefly claimed with his own world-leading run in London. World Athletics
The 400m hurdles — one full lap of the track, ten hurdles spaced 35 metres apart — has become one of track and field's most compelling duels. Warholm has held the world record since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when his 45.94 seconds stunned the sport. Dos Santos was the bronze medallist that day, trailing Warholm and American Rai Benjamin. Zurich Diamond League
Since then, the gap has closed dramatically. Dos Santos won the 2022 world title in Oregon in 46.29 — then the third-fastest time in history and a championship record — and added the 2025 world silver medal in Tokyo. But 2026 has been his most sustained assault on Warholm's supremacy: three head-to-head wins in Shanghai, Xiamen and Oslo, plus a victory in Stockholm. Zurich Diamond League
Before this season, Warholm led the career head-to-head 13 wins to 4. Three more defeats have narrowed that to 13-7. For an athlete who once seemed untouchable over the barriers, the Norwegian now faces a rival who is winning regularly and running faster than ever.
Dos Santos's personal best of 46.29, set when he became world champion in Oregon, still stands as the Brazilian and South American area record. World Athletics
The sprint hurdles, meanwhile, have been producing their own fireworks. Masai Russell, the Paris Olympic champion and current World Athletics No. 1-ranked woman in the 100m hurdles, ran the second-fastest performance in history at a Grand Slam Track meeting in Miami in May 2025. Her American teammate Tia Jones clocked the third-fastest. World Athletics
Russell's Olympic gold in Paris capped a 22-race outdoor season — a punishing schedule — and was her fifth victory of that campaign. She first announced herself at the 2023 Texas Relays in Austin, where she broke the collegiate record with 12.36 seconds. World Athletics
The women's 100m hurdles world record of 12.12 seconds belongs to Nigeria's Tobi Amusan, set at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon. She also ran 12.06 in a separate race at Hayward Field — but that time was wiped from the record books because the tailwind of +2.5 m/s exceeded the legal limit of +2.0. The wind reading matters: a tailwind above 2.0 metres per second is considered too strong to count for record purposes. World Athletics
What makes the 2026 hurdles season stand out is how many of these storylines are converging. Dos Santos is no longer chasing Warholm from a distance. He is beating him head-to-head and holding the fastest time of the year. The next time they line up across the same ten barriers, the question will not be whether the Brazilian can win — he has already answered that three times. It is whether Warholm, the record holder, can find a way to stop him.
