Joshua Abuaku finished eighth in the world championship final over 400 m hurdles at the great show of world record holder Karsten Warholm. The man from Frankfurt, who was the first German in a race for gold since Harald Schmid 36 years ago, finished in Budapest in 48.53 seconds.
“I’m not dissatisfied, the final was my goal. I showed there that I can keep up,” said Abuaku on “ZDF”: “We’ll do it until next year.”
Olympic champion Warholm secured gold in 46.89 seconds, who won the world title for the third time after 2017 and 2019 and made his defeat from the previous year forgotten. At the World Championships in Eugene, the exceptional sprinter started ailing and only finished seventh. Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands (47.34) took second place Wednesday night, with bronze going to USA’s Rai Benjamin (47.56).
Abuaku, fifth in the European Championship, set a personal best of 48.32 seconds and wants to aim for Schmid’s national record from 1982 (47.48 seconds) in the long term. The time was a European record until 1995.
The German sprinters over the 400 m hurdles made a good impression overall in Hungary: Emil Agyekum also advanced to the World Championship semi-finals, but was eliminated there despite a personal best of 48.71 seconds. Constantin Preis couldn’t get past the lead with back problems.
Schmid was the last German to stand in the 400 m hurdles in a World Cup final in Rome in 1987. The former European record holder won bronze at the time.