Brazil's Alison dos Santos sets world record in 400m hurdles at Diamond League in Zurich

Expect a fast start from Carsten Warholm. He did that in Silesia on Sunday. De Santos powered through the halfway point to catch back up, if you like, to the Norwegian. But today, here in Zurich, it's almost the opposite. De Santos pulls up alongside Carsten Warholm before the halfway point, putting such pressure on Warholm. Perhaps Alistair De Santos feels he can go even faster today. Just got a few hurdles left here, and Alistair De Santos is absolutely flying. I think it's going to be another win for De Santos. He's showing the whole field a clean pair of heels. Big fall from Chris Robinson, unfortunately, at the top of this straight. But Alistair De Santos, unstoppable in 2026. This guy is on fire. He's having a brilliant season, 45.81. He's broken, unofficially, the world record. We're waiting for that to get ratified. That was a special, special race. The rest of the field have got their heads in their hands. They don't know what they just witnessed. Warholm had a front row seat. He's queuing up to congratulate De Santos. But 45.80, that is just phenomenal. Oh, my days. Goodness me. Well, the chat around the belt cluster in the last couple of days has been about world records, maybe at 800 metres, maybe in the pole vault. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was talking about the 400 metres hurdles. De Santos has not only set a new world record, he has smashed the 45.94 of Carsten Warholm, Tokyo, in 2021. That was outstanding. Do you know, Hannah, it felt quick. I mean, the first 100 metres, we'll see it again in a moment, they were neck and neck. But after 100 metres, he's already gone. And he was away. And he just kept going. And we thought, Warholm's going to come back at him, surely. But he never did. What a performance. Wow. Look at a down year and go, maybe I need to recover. Maybe I need to take stock of my body, of my mind, of what's going on. And De Santos has done the absolute opposite in 2026. He's been experimenting a bit with the flat, the flat 400 flat, and he's got faster there, not as fast as Benjamin has. But that, I would never have guessed that De Santos was going to take four tenths of his lifetime best that stood since 2022, and take over a tenth of the world record tonight. A brilliant man. I mean, technically, it was outstanding. I mean, Warholm can't believe it either. I mean, it's one thing not being able to beat your main rival. He hasn't done it this year. But I guess he was thinking, at least I've got the world record in my back pocket. And that's nice and safe. I've zipped it up carefully. And he's not touching that. He hasn't even got the world record now. De Santos is just ripping up the track here and just doing new things in this event. We have never seen anything like this before. And the 25,000 people in the lexicon this evening have seen history made. And you're right, Chris, we've all been looking at those 800 metres, wondering if that's where the world record's going to come. It's a Mondo Duplantis, and instead it comes in the four hurdles. And even with Rye Benjamin off having a go at 400 flat, you can kind of say, oh, can De Santos, can we call him the best four hurdler in the world when Rye Benjamin, the Olympic champion, the world champion, isn't competing? And yes, you can. He's a world record holder at 48, 45.8. But there was real intent in that first half for me there, Chris. He knew he was on to something good today. You know, I think that's a classy thing to do. Just let everybody else, all the chatter, all the chatter in the hotel rooms, the bars, the lobbies, was about different events. And De Santos just quietly comes out on the track and produces 45 seconds 80 of pure magic. Wow. Enjoy, Alison. You've done it. Quite brilliant. It's just lovely to see how much it means to him as well. He's a guy that loves to compete. He never shies away from the big matchups and the big occasions.