Rai Benjamin’s long-awaited victory in Paris is a testomony to his unwavering dedication and relentless pursuit of excellence.
After 4 years of relentless pursuit, Rai Benjamin’s perseverance paid off in Paris. He claimed the gold within the 400m hurdles, a feat that had eluded him in each Worlds and Olympics. His victory was all of the extra spectacular as he outpaced Karsten Warholm, the world document holder, who settled for silver.
The 4×400 m relay was a battle Rai Benjamin was prepared for. He confronted off towards Letsile Tebogo, who gave his all to defeat Benjamin. The race was intense, however in the long run, Benjamin’s dedication and ability have been simply an excessive amount of for Tebogo to beat.
It’s essential to know the sheer depth of the 400-meter hurdles, a race that has been mastered. With ten hurdles to beat, it’s one of many hardest races in our sport. But, in Paris, Rai made it look easy, dominating his ultimate and reaching the highest.
This interview is from March 2023; please get pleasure from!
This interview was carried out in March 2023. As prior to now six pre-pandemic years, International Athletics & Advertising and marketing had the forethought to place collectively a few days of interviews for a few of the observe and area’s international media. Twenty-six athletes gave interviews to a bunch of recent, veteran, and not-so-veteran media. Some media have been getting ready for textual content tales, audio, and video, and a few, like RunBlogRun, with a mixture of displays.
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In that gentle, we ask you to observe the interview of Rai Benjamin.
On March 8-9, 2023, I interviewed 25 athletes from International Athletics. You’ll start to see them pop up on our websites, FB, Twitter, and IG. We are going to present video variations, audio variations, and textual content variations. Why? As a result of our readers digest media in numerous manners, even on the identical day.
Rai Benjamin has had a busy three years. Once I spoke with Rai in March 2023, we had not chatted since 2019. I requested Rai to supply some context concerning the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, the Eugene 2022 World Championships, and his present state of well being and health.
What resulted is among the most poignant and trustworthy interviews I’ve witnessed in my practically 40 years as a journalist.
My interviews are fairly natural. I exploit a technique recognized affectionately because the Brian Lenton technique. Brian is a nice Australian journalist who captured the golden period of Australian marathoning: Chris Wardlaw, Rob De Castella, Steve Monaghetti, in addition to John Landy, Ron Clarke, Brendan Foster, and Invoice Rodgers, amongst others. In most interviews, Lenton threw a six-pack of an grownup beverage on the desk, and the discuss went the place it went.
Eugene, Oregon, USA
July 15-26 2022, picture by Kevin Morris
I ought to name my technique the advanced Lenton technique. No booze, and sure, tons of studying previous to the interview, however the interview grows organically. On this case, with Rai, he’s clearly snug with an interview. Rai is aware of I really like the game, and he is aware of the questions could have him method an occasion otherwise, maybe than he has earlier than.
My plan was to attempt to admire the challenges offered to Rai Benjamin in 2021 and 2022 with sickness, harm and the challenges of being one of many two most interesting athletes on the planet in your occasion.
In one of many questions, you might discover it a bit garbled. The reality is that this, Rai was so trustworthy, and this author discovered that to be a really emotional expertise. Honesty, this present day, will not be generally discovered. On this author’s estimation, Rai Benjamin is on a journey to see simply how good he actually is, and that has nothing to do along with his greatest 400-meter hurdle time.
I imagine that it’s certainly one of Rai’s greatest efforts.
Benefit from the interview. When an athlete and a author can mix for a standard aim, that’s, for this author, like working a near-perfect race.
I’ve to be trustworthy with you. My remark of Rai Benjamin is that this. In his personal time, he’ll turn out to be the best 400-meter hurdler the world has ever seen. However, it’s his journey.
And he has many ten-hurdle races (to paraphrase poet Robert Frost) to go earlier than he sleeps.
I met with Rai Benjamin proper after his 400-meter hurdle race in Doha, Qatar. Catching his breath, Rai informed me, ” Look, I’ve simply had COVID once more, I took per week off and am jet lagged.” He ran a 47.78 to carry off a PB working CJ Allen, who ran 47.93.
“I will likely be racing the LA Grand Prix in three weeks and hope to run a lot sooner.”
And that’s the reason I’m on a airplane on Could 24 to observe the USATF LA Grand Prix.
I wish to see Rai Benjamin run very quick over the 400-meter hurdles.
Particular due to Mike Deering for the post-interview manufacturing of the Interview.
