Qatar’s Samba clocks second-best 400M hurdles time in track and field history
Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba continued to rule global track and field scene by becoming only the second man in history to go under 47sec in the 400M hurdles yesterday.
Samba clocked 46.98sec at the Paris Diamond League to continue his domination this season during which he set five personal best times besides breaking several meet and Asian records on the way.
In the process, he broke the legendary Edwin Moses’ meet record of 47.66 and got agonisingly close to shattering the world mark of 46.78 set by Kevin Young at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, reported Gulf Times.
Samba’s 46.98 is also a new world lead, beating Rai Benjamin’s 47.02 from the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
British Virgin Islands’ Kyron McMaster finished second with a time of 47.54 while world champion Karsten Warholm was third in 48.06.
The 22-year-old collected his fourth win the seventh race of the Diamond League season after impressive victories in Doha, Rome and Oslo.
The Qatari hurdler has been on an absolute tearaway this season, going undefeated in a string of 47sec performances to improve his personal best five times in six outings.
“I told it even before — I want to become the fastest man in the world and I work hard to achieve it. It definitely didn’t feel like under 47 race today,” Samba was quoted as saying by The Peninsula.
“I made a small mistake at the start, lost my balance on the first hurdle so I didn’t expect to run so fast. But it feels great to be the second fastest man in the history. The world record is getting close but I just want to improve step by step and to run fast. I improved my technique since last year and who knows, maybe I can be a second faster next year. I’m speechless now,” he added.
