ZURICH: Pole vault king Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdles master Karsten Warholm in a one-off 100m exhibition race in Zurich on Wednesday. Pitched as “100m to settle it all, a battle of legends”, Sweden’s Duplantis used all his raw runway speed to belt out to an incredible start he never ceded.

Norway’s Warholm, in lane six, one outside the Swede, never looked like reeling in his opponent, who won in 10.37 seconds. Duplantis, the newly-crowned double Olympic champion who has broken the pole vault world record an incredible 10 times, even threw across a cheeky peak to his right as he went through the line.

“I’m pretty fired up,” said Duplantis. “I feel very, very good.” Warholm clocked 10.47sec in second and as loser will don one of Duplantis’ Sweden tops in competition in Thursday’s Diamond League programme proper. “He had a great start, congrats,” Warholm said of Duplantis.

The two track stars raced off at the Letzigrund Stadium to make good on some training ground banter that has escalated all the way to a sprint-off. Organizers managed to pack around 2,500 fans into the main tribune, tickets selling for up to 100 Swiss francs (106 euros).

The rivalry commenced after a joint training session between Warholm and Duplantis in the run-up to last year’s Monaco Diamond League meet. “He was saying that I looked fast, and I was like, ‘Let’s race’,” Duplantis said.

Warholm accepted the challenge after Duplantis claimed he could win. “With my ego and how highly I think of myself, I needed to accept,” explained the Norwegian, the reigning 400m hurdles world record holder, an Olympic gold and silver medallist and three-time world champion.

Clean scrap

On the night, each athlete was welcomed onto the track at the 50m mark in a glitzy walk-on worthy of prize fighters. Warholm came out wearing a boxer’s red dressing gown, hood pulled up over a cap. His coach Leif Olav Alnes followed, dressed in a skin-tight blue and white all-in one with “Fat by choice” written on his back, and also toting a Viking horn hat.

Duplantis wore a boxer’s blue dressing gown, accompanied by an array of athletes including US sprinter Fred Kerley, who has been helping with his block training. “No biting, no kicking, no pulling of vests,” said emcee Colin Jackson. “Shake hands and a good clean scrap,” the former 110m hurdles world record holder said. There was only one winner of the “scrap” as Duplantis exploded out of the blocks and never looked back. — AFP