Breaking News:Riding a winning streak into Paris, Rai Benjamin…
SIX TIMES SINCE autumn ’19 have the three fastest men ever to circle the track in the 400H met in the same race. Following the Tokyo Olympic final of ’21 the trio’s subsequent meetings on four occasions have been celebrated correctly as epic.
Now after taking round 6 at the Monaco DL, Rai Benjamin hopes to ride momentum from two straight wins in the unofficial series to a gold-hued medal upgrade in Paris.
The clash three summers ago under the five rings in the Japanese capital stood out as surely the men’s highlight of that Games — a Karsten Warholm World Record win from Benjamin’s 46.17, still the Nos. 1 and 2 all-time clockings, and Alison dos Santos at 46.72, 0.06 under Kevin Young’s WR that had stood for 29 years until just a month before Tokyo.
The most recent of the trio’s showdowns, that Monaco meeting last week, could not have been a more gripping prequel to Paris Olympics drama. Sprinting powerfully off the final hurdle neck and neck with Warholm, Benjamin finished about a foot in front, 46.67–46.73. In 3rd came ’22 world champion dos Santos at 47.18.
SIX TIMES SINCE autumn ’19 have the three fastest men ever to circle the track in the 400H met in the same race. Following the Tokyo Olympic final of ’21 the trio’s subsequent meetings on four occasions have been celebrated correctly as epic.
Now after taking round 6 at the Monaco DL, Rai Benjamin hopes to ride momentum from two straight wins in the unofficial series to a gold-hued medal upgrade in Paris.
The clash three summers ago under the five rings in the Japanese capital stood out as surely the men’s highlight of that Games — a Karsten Warholm World Record win from Benjamin’s 46.17, still the Nos. 1 and 2 all-time clockings, and Alison dos Santos at 46.72, 0.06 under Kevin Young’s WR that had stood for 29 years until just a month before Tokyo.
The most recent of the trio’s showdowns, that Monaco meeting last week, could not have been a more gripping prequel to Paris Olympics drama. Sprinting powerfully off the final hurdle neck and neck with Warholm, Benjamin finished about a foot in front, 46.67–46.73. In 3rd came ’22 world champion dos Santos at 47.18.
I think when we are going to look back at this era of the 400m hurdles, I think we’re all gonna be grateful that we had this level of nerve and competition. And now we’re all here ready to race in Monaco tomorrow.”
Monaco for Benjamin — racing just 12 days after a spectacular 46.46 (No. 5 all-time) Olympic Trials win 9 time zones to the west — was planned as “fine-tuning.” Speaking immediately after he had won, he said, “It wasn’t a clean race for myself. I’m not sure what the other guys thought, but definitely a fine-tune, a dress rehearsal for the real day.”
Track being a mental game, as well, Benjamin and his coaching team, Joanna Hayes and Quincy Watts, surely intended his appearance on European soil as a show of force, a demonstration of confidence. The New York native USC grad, who’ll turn 27 a day after the Paris Opening Ceremony, is keenly aware that while his four global medals since ’19 speak eloquently for his ability, only gold will loudly shout it out to the wider public.
“I know what I’m capable of,” Benjamin told T&FN in March of ’23 “At some point something has to give. That’s my optimistic view on it. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither was any building that has ever stood. So you gotta lay the bricks.”
Laying the brick of hopping a 12-hour flight to take on his rivals a month ahead of the Games was “kind of a tough decision to make since it’s so far,” Benjamin confessed, “and, I mean, the jet lag hit me really bad yesterday. I’ve been sleeping the entire day, so I’m just happy to come out here feeling tired and get the win today.”
Reading between the lines, the mission to Monaco had much to do with dispelling any sense the competition may have that he ducks them on the DL circuit.
Not the case at all, he says. “Hopefully I find a little magic this season and get it done in Paris. That’s always the goal.” But circumstances, untimely injury and illness threw up hurdles that were tough to get over in ’22 and ’23.
“Unfortunately,” Benjamin told the media in Monaco, “I’ve had things happen in season these past couple years that have prevented me from really training how I wanted to. Instead, Benjamin found himself “taking trips to Munich [and the office of doctor-to-sports-stars Hans Müller-Wohlfahrt] to get all that stuff fixed, and it’s just been a really frustrating, 3–4 years.
“’21, I was fine, I lost [laughs]. I admit that.
“And every other year after that it’s just been a struggle. So, you know, it feels good having the world-leading time, but I know that there’s more to be done and if it’s not here at this meet, then it’s the next meet.”
As ever-dangerous as his competitors are, Benjamin’s Pre Classic/DL Final triumph last September over Warholm, with dos Santos 4th, set a new tone, with his roll begun there now carried near to the opening of the Games in Paris.
“I’m a bit behind the curve in terms of obviously an individual gold medal,” Benjamin told the scribes and ‘content creators’ with phone cameras. I think for me the focus has been just getting the races that I need to get in as close to home as possible because I’m at the mercy of having my coaches be collegiate coaches so they can’t travel as well as, say, other professional coaches can. So I’m limited in that area of being able to move around.
