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

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

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

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

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

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

Duplantis, the world record holder in the pole vault, presented his friend with a Swedish running vest that Warholm must now wear during his hurdle race on Thursday.

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

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

An enticing look at the opportunities offered by social media that athletics would be crazy not to seize

The action lasted less than 10.5 seconds, but the still-capacity crowd inside Zurich’s 30,000-capacity Letzigrund Stadium told its own story.

And the figures that could then be found on social networks will be even more likely to attract the attention of sports promoters: almost two million views in 12 hours on X, similar figures on TikTok and a live audience on YouTube surpassing 100,000 people.

And for what? A seemingly meaningless 100m race between Mondo Duplantis and Karsten Warholm, world record holders in the pole vault and 400m hurdles respectively and two of the sport’s greatest personalities.

For the record, it was Duplantis who defied the odds by beating his track specialist rival in 10.37 seconds, drawing greater attention to his generational sporting talents than most of his 10 world records in the pole vault. Just as Geoff Capes shocked a few people in the 1970s by beating Brendan Foster in the 200m sprint, it certainly served as a reminder of the broader, often underappreciated talents of eventing athletes.

The event – ​​a prelude to Thursday night’s rather more traditional Diamond League program – also provided a tantalizing glimpse of opportunities that athletics would now be foolish not to seize.

Boxers, even those of much more limited skill, were the first to truly recognize the possibilities of social media for organizing lucrative and popular events outside the traditional parameters of their sport.

With individual entries more akin to a heavyweight contest, Warholm and Duplantis certainly drew inspiration from that theme, but the broader triumph of Wednesday’s Red Bull-sponsored event was to illustrate that athletics has in reality a unique potential to do so even more convincingly. Because there is an almost infinite range of possibilities in the scope that running, throwing and jumping can offer and, unlike boxing stars on social media, athletics can actually showcase authentic sporting champions .

It’s about introducing a little fun and innovation

So what about Noah Lyles versus maybe Matthew Hudson-Smith in the 300m? Or Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in a 200m or long jump, where she is also said to be terribly good. There has also long been talk of Warholm himself running 600m with his compatriot Jakob Ingebrigtsen.

For a sport that struggles so much to maintain the visibility it deserves outside of the Olympics or World Championships, these types of largely pressure-free events need not encroach on the serious career-defining activities of major championships. They are simply a fantastic way to capture the interest and imagination of more fans outside of the sport while showcasing the talent and personality of its truly global stars in a different way.

It’s not about trampling on the traditional. It’s about introducing a little fun and innovation as an additional gateway to the general public. These kinds of special face-offs don’t have to be over-the-top, but could be a great start to any Diamond League night.

As in many sports, the wider context is one of ongoing debate and power struggle around the best field of competition. Athletics is actually closer to a sport like boxing than, say, football, in the rhythms of many of its main protagonists and in a realistic ability to only compete at an optimal level in perhaps five to ten times a year.

And yet, this doesn’t have to be a huge disadvantage. The calendar simply needs to better reflect this and that is why, in addition to the money on offer, Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Athletics League – with its four annual dates – has a strong starting structure hence a competition consistent annual can emerge. The Diamond League, which is played on 15 different dates, reaches more places but never manages to attract the best to each meeting.

But as Duplantis and Warholm showed, almost any event could be improved by thinking outside the box and more people will also follow the purist program of the Diamond League races in Zurich after Wednesday’s curtain raises.