The finish of the 400m hurdles at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm turned out to be particularly lunar on Sunday. Three environmental activists from the Aterställ Vatmarker group positioned themselves with their backs to the runners, a few meters before the finish line, where they unfurled a huge banner from one end of the track to the other. This dangerous initiative was tackled by the athletes present, who arrived launched in the final stretch.
Starting with the winner of the day, the Norwegian Karsten Warhol (47″57), world record holder in the discipline (45″94) and rather spared Sunday by this event, since he was outside, on the corridor 8. “It was completely stupid, I was furious, he enraged. We must be able to demonstrate, but not like that, whatever the subject. »
Other runners had no choice but to crash into the banner. “There was an eleventh hurdle today, ironically commented Frenchman Wilfried Happio, fifth in the race in 49”67. I didn’t quite understand, things go too fast in those moments. We are already not too lucid at the end of the race, so if in addition there is a banner that we have to dodge…”