The Olympic hurdler who just smashed a world record says he unwinds by building Legos and relaxing in a hot tub

• Norwegian hurdler Karsten Warholm just set a new world record for the 400m hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics.
• Warholm spoke to Insider in June about how he trains and recovers.
• His decompression activities of choice are building Lego structures and relaxing in a hot tub.

Olympic hurdler Karsten Warholm made history by setting a new world record for the 400m hurdles race.

Just a month after breaking a 29-year-old record with a time of 46.70 seconds, Warholm broke his own record with a new, faster time of 45.94 seconds.

The race has been described as "the best race in Olympic history."

In the days leading up to the Tokyo games, Warholm spoke to Insider as part of our mini-series, The Gold Plan.

The 25-year-old trained hard to win gold, but he prioritizes relaxation too, by building Legos and lounging in hot tubs with his coach.

A post shared by Karsten Warholm (@kwarholm)

During lockdown, Warholm rediscovered a love of building Lego structures - and he showed Insider an impressive Hogwarts structure over Zoom - having also enjoyed it as a kid.

"When you train a lot, it's very important to get the rest, but it's also quite boring when you watch all the movies on Netflix and all those things, so it's really nice to have something else to do which is chill, but that doesn't take all your energy," he said.

Warholm puts some music on and "puzzles all the bricks together" to decompress.

When he's not building Legos, you can find him recovering from training in the hot tub with his coach, Leif Olav Alnes.

"We hang out and eat together," Warholm said. "He has a jacuzzi in his garden, which we use on the recovery days on Sundays. We just talk and have fun."