Warholm on track in bid for fourth Euro hurdles gold

Karsten Warholm kept his bid for a second gold of the European championships in Birmingham and a fourth 400m hurdles title on track as he sailed through qualifiers on Wednesday.

Warholm, who set the 400m hurdles world record of 45.94 seconds when winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, was part of the Norwegian quartet that won the 4x400m mixed relay on Monday.

He won his semi-final at the Alexander Stadium in 48.01sec, with the final scheduled for 1940 GMT on Friday.

Since winning his first world title in London back in 2017, Warholm has been one of the most dominant athletes in the world of track and field.

The 30-year-old has claimed two more world titles, but had to be content with Olympic silver at the 2024 Paris Games.

He is also Europe's leading hurdler, having bagged three back-to-back continental titles in Berlin in 2018, Munich in 2022 and Rome two years ago.

Warholm equalled German Harald Schmid's haul of three European 400m hurdles titles when he won in a championship record of 46.98sec in Rome and will move out as sole record holder should he win in Birmingham.

Remarkably, since the 2016 Olympic Games when Warholm made the semi-finals in his first full season in the event, he has only been beaten once by a European -- France's Wilfried Happio finishing fourth in the final of the 2022 world championships in Oregon, the Norwegian star was seventh on his return from injury.

Warholm also holds the 33 fastest times in history by a European 400m hurdler, including a season's best of 46.61sec for victory in the London Diamond League last month.

Warholm leads the 2026 European list by almost one second from Germany's Emil Agyekum, the only two Europeans to have broken the 48sec barrier this year before the Euros.

Sweden's Oskar Edlund became the third when he set a national record to win the first semi in 47.81sec ahead of Germany's Owe Fischer-Breiholz.

Agyekum won the second semi in 48.17sec ahead of Italy's reigning Euro silver medallist Alessandro Sibilio.

There were fireworks in the semi-finals of the men's 800m as Ireland's Mark English set a championship record of 1min 43.49sec in winning the second semi.

The time beat the previous best of 1:43.84 set by East Germany's Olaf Beyer at the 1978 Prague champs.

"That feels good, it really does," said English, a qualified medical doctor. "The record means more to some other people than to me.

"I saw the record before the race and I thought it would probably be broken by someone at these championships. It's nice to get it but we'll have another race tomorrow and I'm ready to put on another show."

A two-time European bronze medallist, 33-year-old English roared home to set himself up as one of the favourites for Thursday's final.

Britain's world and Olympic finalist Max Burgin and teammate Ben Pattison also went through to ensure a serious home challenge.

One athlete to miss out, however, was France's defending champion Gabriel Tual.

Tual, the sixth‑fastest man and the second‑fastest European in the two-lap race, could only finish sixth in the semi won by Burgin.

"I was good enough but I didn't have anything left in the tank in the last 200m," said Tual.

Completing the line-up for the final are France's Corentin Le Clezio, Spain's Mohamed Attaoui, Italian Francesco Pernici –- who all broke the 1:44 barrier -- along with Croatian Marino Bloudek and a second Spaniard, David Barroso.

"Everyone is in with a shout of getting a medal. It will be a great race, but to finally win gold would mean a lot," English said.