Watch: Pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis beats hurdler Karsten Warholm in 100m race – in 10.37sec

Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat his good friend Karsten Warholm in an exhibition 100m sprint on Wednesday in Zurich, crossing the line in 10.37 seconds.

Duplantis, a Louisiana-born Swede widely known as “Mondo,” lined up against Norway’s Warholm, the 400m hurdles world record holder, in a duel on the eve of the city’s Diamond League meet.

“I’m pretty fired up. How could I not be?” Duplantis said after running a time less than a second slower than the 9.79sec recorded by the winner of this year’s 100m Olympic final. Warholm ran 10.47sec.

“I’ve got to give it to Mondo. He beat me today fair and square,” Warholm said. “It was a great race. He was out of the blocks fast.”

The pair came up with the idea of an exhibition earlier in the season when they were debating who would be quicker over the sprint. Their times are not fast enough to qualify to compete in the men’s 100m at the Olympics, but are good enough to beat all but the most elite male sprinters.

Duplantis, the pole vault world record holder, handed his friend a Sweden running vest that Warholm must now wear in his hurdles race on Thursday.

At a Diamond League meet in Poland on August 25, Duplantis broke the world record in the pole vault for the third time this year, this time clearing 6.26m.

He also set a world record at the Paris Olympics, clearing 6.25m after clinching the gold medal.

An enticing glimpse into social media opportunities athletics would be mad not to seize

The action would last for less than 10.5 seconds, but a still packed home-straight crowd inside Zurich’s 30,000 capacity Letzigrund stadium told its own story.

And the numbers that could then be found on social media will have been even more likely to capture the attention of sports promoters: Almost two million views within 12 hours on X, similar figures across TikTok, and a live YouTube audience in excess of 100,000.

And for what? An ostensibly meaningless race over 100m between Mondo Duplantis and Karsten Warholm, respectively the world record holders over the pole vault and the 400m hurdles and two of the sport’s biggest personalities.

For the record, it was Duplantis who upset the odds to beat his track-specialist rival in a time of 10.37sec that attracted wider attention to his generational athletic talents than most of his 10 world pole vault records. Just as Geoff Capes shocked a few people in the 1970s by beating Brendan Foster in a 200m sprint, it was certainly a reminder of the often underestimated wider talents of field eventers.

The event – a prelude to Thursday night’s rather more traditional Diamond league programme – also provided an enticing glimpse into opportunities that athletics would be mad now not to seize upon.

Boxers, even of far more limited skill, have been the first to really recognise the possibilities of social media to contrive lucrative and popular events outside the traditional parameters of their sport.

With individual entrances more akin to a heavyweight contest, Warholm and Duplantis certainly drew on that theme but the wider triumph of Wednesday’s Red Bull-sponsored event was in illustrating that athletics actually has a unique potential to do this even more convincingly. For there is an almost endless range of possibilities in the breadth that running, throwing and jumping can offer and, unlike social media boxing stars, athletics can actually showcase authentic sporting champions.

It is about introducing a bit of fun and innovation

So what of Noah Lyles against perhaps Matthew Hudson-Smith over 300m? Or Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in a one off 200m or long jump, where she is reputedly also frighteningly good. There has also long been talk of Warholm himself racing his countryman Jakob Ingebrigtsen over 600m.

For a sport which so struggles to maintain the visibility it merits outside of an Olympics or World Championships, these sort of largely pressure-free events do not have to impinge on the serious career-defining business of major championships. They are simply a fantastic way of capturing the interest and imagination of more fans outside of the sport while showcasing the talent and personalities of its truly global array of stars in a different way.

It is not a question of trampling all over the traditional. It is about introducing a bit of fun and innovation as an additional gateway into the mainstream. These sort of special head-to-heads do not have to be overdone, but could be a great start to any Diamond League night.

As in many sports, the wider backdrop is an ongoing debate and power struggle over the best range of competitions. Athletics is actually closer to a sport like boxing than, say, football in the rhythms of many of its main protagonists and a realistic ability to only compete at an optimal level on perhaps between five and 10 occasions a year.

And yet this need not be a huge disadvantage. The calendar just needs better to reflect this and it is why, alongside the money on offer, Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track League – with its four annual dates – has a sound starting structure from which a coherent annual competition may emerge. The Diamond League, which is played out across 15 different dates, reaches more places but can never attract the very best to every meeting.

But, as Duplantis and Warholm have shown, just about any event could be enhanced by thinking outside the box and more people will also watch the purist’s programme of Diamond League races in Zurich as a result of Wednesday’s curtain raiser.

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