Karsten Warholm and the possibility of losing for the first time: "It's the biggest challenge of my career"

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To

, who already commented that he did not like the Olympic Villages, they have put him in a university campus, with shared bathrooms, spring mattresses and paper walls, and, of course, he laughs, laughs and laughs when they ask him if he is comfortable.

"Don't ask me these things. I don't want to be picky, but when I go to a competition I prefer to sleep in a good hotel. I wouldn't have the mattress in my room at home, honestly. But it doesn't matter, it's a few days, and at In the end I fall asleep anywhere", replies the Norwegian, nice, funny.

From a specialty for those who love athletics, the 400 meter hurdles, coffee for the most coffee lovers, he has become a figure more or less known throughout the world.

How?

With the two things that hook fans the most.

The first, a good rivalry,

last year

, who had guarded it since the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Warholm is now an Olympic, world and European champion of the specialty, but here in Eugene he is supposed to be questioned.

A month and a half ago at the Diamond League meeting in Rabat he suffered a hamstring injury and since then he has not been able to train well.

In the preliminary series of the World Cup he had no problems;

the unknown is what will happen in the final.

The next morning (04:50 a.m., Teledeporte) will be revealed.

How do you face this championship after the injury? It will be the biggest challenge of my career, without a doubt.

For the first time I come to a championship without knowing if I can ask my body to give 100% and that makes it 10 times more difficult.

I'm not afraid to run, but I don't know if I'm ready yet.

Getting injured is a mistake, I don't know what mistake I made, but when I got injured I made a mistake and I don't like to make mistakes.

But it also has its fun part.

The weeks in which I have had to train differently, this uncertainty that I feel now... it has its own.

Warholm's story is a story of talent.

Pure talent.

At the age of eight, he was walking with his mother in the center of his town, Ulsteinvik, in western Norway, when a school friend accosted him.

"Hey, sign up, sign up," he told her.

"To what?" Warholm answered. In a few minutes a children's race was taking place and he showed up at the start in jeans. He won. And he discovered that it was good for athletics. Then he won it all, eight golds at the Norwegian Junior Championships from 2013, until he reached the elite. He was a decathlete and among the best in the world he saw that throwing would always weigh him down. He decided to specialize and in the 400 meter hurdles he found his place. In the 2017 World Cup, at only 21 years old, started a winning streak that has not yet ended despite the opposition of Benjamin, runner-up in everything.

What continues to motivate you? When you prepare for a championship you always think that gold will change your life and in the end nothing changes.

The more gold I get, the more satisfied I will be, but the truth is that I am already quite satisfied.

I always go back to training because I like my lifestyle, I like what I do, I like to find my limits.

To tell you the truth, I hope to continue like this for many years.

As you can see on his social networks, Warholm is a pretty happy guy, usually happy, a lover of costumes or games like Lego - he has built the Disney castle, the Tower Bridge... - and with a really peculiar relationship with his coach,

, a veteran who was about to retire when he met him.

Despite the age difference, they are close friends and joke around constantly.

"Our relationship is typical of two colleagues, it's a '

'.

We have the same humor, we make fun of each other, we have a lot of fun.

With so many hours of training ahead of me, it's the only way I understand to do it", says Warholm before the final that will test him more than ever. For the first time he is not sure of himself, for the first time in five years it can be defeated.The 400 meter hurdles, a specialty for experts, promises a show for all audiences.

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