Alison Brendom Alves dos Santos (born 3 June 2000)[3] is a Brazilian athlete specialising in the 400 metres hurdles. He is a bronze medalist at the 2020 Olympic Games, the 2022 World Champion and the third fastest athlete in the history of the event, in addition to being a gold medalist in the 2019 Pan American Games. Dos Santos is currently the South American and Pan American record holder in the competition.

Alison dos Santos

Dos Santos at the Stockholm Diamond League in 2022
Personal information
Full name	Alison Brendom Alves dos Santos[1]
Born	(2000-06-03) 3 June 2000 (age 22)[1] São Joaquim da Barra, São Paulo, Brazil[1][2]
Height	2.00 m (6 ft 7 in)[1]
Sport
Country	Brazil
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	400 m hurdles
Club	Pinheiros-SP
Coached by	Felipe de Siqueira da Silva
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	400 m hurdles: 46.29 AR (Eugene 2022)
Medal record Men's athletics Representing  Brazil Olympic Games 2020 Tokyo 400 m hurdles World Championships 2022 Eugene 400 m hurdles Diamond League 2022 400 m hurdles World Relays 2021 Chorzów 4×400 m mixed Pan American Games 2019 Lima 400 m hurdles Universiade 2019 Napoles 400 m hurdles World Junior Championships 2018 Tampere 400 m hurdles

He was the 2022 Diamond League 400 m hurdles champion.

Early life

As a 10-month-old, a domestic accident left him with third-degree oil burns on his head and characteristic scars.[4]

As a child, Alison took a chance on judo. It was during this period that he earned the nickname Piu, but soon left the mat for athletics. At the age of 16, he was already competing among adults.[5]

Career

Dos Santos won a bronze medal at the 2018 World U20 Championships.

At just 19 years old, he participated in the 2019 Pan American Games, held in Lima, Peru, where he won the 400m hurdles event, breaking his personal record, and the South American under-20 record, with the time of 48.45. It was the fourth best time in the world at the moment, and with that, Dos Santos qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics. He had already won gold in the same event, at the 2019 Summer Universiade, weeks before.[6]

In September 2019, Dos Santos went to the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, where he won the 400m hurdles semifinal in 48.35, breaking his personal record again and going to the final with the second best overall time. The last time a Brazilian had reached the final of this event in the Worlds was with Eronilde Araújo, in 1999. In the final, he broke his personal record again, finishing in seventh place, with the time of 48.28. He was just 0.25s from the bronze medalist.[7][8]

In April 2021, he broke again his own Brazilian record with a time of 48.15, in Des Moines, USA. On 9 May 2021, he broke the South American record that belonged since 2005 to Panama's athlete Bayano Al Kamani (47.84). Dos Santos obtained the 47.68 mark in the Mt.Sac stage of the Continental Athletics Tour, in California (USA). On 28 May 2021, he broke the South American record again with a time of 47.57, in Doha, Qatar, participating in the Diamond League. This time placed Alison as the third in the world ranking. He even topped the list in April. The time of 47.57 already placed him as 22nd best runner in the race of all time.[9][10] On 1 July 2021, in the Oslo stage of the Diamond League, he again lowered his own South American record, with a time of 47.38. This time placed him, at the moment, as the 15th best runner in the history of the race.[11] He improved this record with 47.34, three days later, winning in Stockholm Diamond League stage.[12]

At the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Alison qualified for the final of the 400 metres hurdles, breaking the South American record with a time of 47.31.[13] In the final, he got the bronze medal, breaking the South American record again by a large margin, with a time of 46.72 (he lowered his time by 0.6 seconds). Both he, Warholm and Benjamin surprisingly lowered their times: Warholm lowered the world record by almost 0.8 seconds (45.94) and Benjamin beat the Americas record also by 0.8 seconds (46.17). The event was the strongest in 400m hurdles history, with the three Olympic medalists getting the three best times in the history of the event, all beating Kevin Young's old world record (which had lasted almost 30 years and had only fallen a month before the Olympics). Alison became the 3rd best in the history of the race, at just 21 years old.[14][15][16]

In April 2022, he made the second best Brazilian mark in history in the 400m, 44.54, an event that is not his specialty and what gave him the index to qualify for the Eugene World Championship (he would be a bronze medalist in the 400m with this mark, in this championship).[17] In May 2022 he won a gold medal in the Doha stage of the Diamond League with a time of 47.24, defeating Rai Benjamin.[18] In June 2022 he won a gold medal in the Stockholm stage of the Diamond League with a time of 46.80.[19]

On July 19, 2022, in the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, he broke the South American record again and the World Championship record in the 400 metres hurdles with a time of 46.29, becoming world champion, defeating Warholm and Benjamin. It was the first men's gold in the history of Brazil in World Athletics Championships, and he became only the second Brazilian in history to be world champion in outdoor athletics. The first was the pole vaulter Fabiana Murer eleven years earlier in Daegu, South Korea. Dos Santos was 0.13s from beating Benjamin's Americas record and 0.36s from beating Warholm's world record.[20][21][22][23][24] At the Diamond Race final in Zürich in September, he became the Diamond League champion in his specialist event.[3]

Achievements

Personal bests

• 400 m hurdles: 46.29 – Eugene, OR, 19 July 2022, South American record
• 400 m: 44.54 – Walnut, CA, 16 April 2022
• 4x400 m relay: 3:04.13 – Lima, 26 May 2019

International competitions

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Event	Notes
Representing  Brazil
2017	World U18 Championships	Nairobi, Kenya	5th	400 m hurdles	53.98
			1st	Mixed 4 × 400 m relay	3:21.71
2018	World U20 Championships	Tampere, Finland	3rd	400 m hurdles	49.78
	South American U23 Championships	Cuenca, Ecuador	2nd	400 m	45.97
			1st	400 m hurdles	50.56
			2nd	4 × 400 m relay	3:09.90
2019	South American Championships	Lima, Peru	1st	400 m hurdles	49.88
			2nd	4 × 400 m relay	3:04.13
	South American U20 Championships	Cali, Colombia	1st	400 m	45.78
	Universiade	Naples, Italy	1st	400 m hurdles	48.57
	Pan American U20 Championships	San José, Costa Rica	1st	400 m hurdles	48.49
	Pan American Games	Lima, Peru	1st	400 m hurdles	48.45
	World Championships	Doha, Qatar	7th	400 m hurdles	48.28
2021	Olympic Games	Tokyo, Japan	3rd	400 m hurdles	46.72 AR
2022	World Championships	Eugene, United States	1st	400 m hurdles	46.29 CR, AR

Circuit wins and titles

• Diamond League champion 400 m hurdles: 2022[25]

400 metres hurdles wins, other events specified in parenthesis

• 2021 (2): Stockholm Bauhaus-Galan, Brussels Memorial Van Damme
• 2022 (7): Doha Diamond League (WL MR), Eugene Prefontaine Classic (WL), Oslo Bislett Games, Stockholm (WL MR), Chorzów Kamila Skolimowska Memorial (MR), Brussels, Zürich Weltklasse

Record progression in the 400m hurdles

• 2017 – 53.82 (17 years old)
• 2018 – 49.78
• 2019 – 48.28
• 2020 – no competitions held
• 2021 – 46.72
• 2022 – 46.29

References

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