Alison dos Santos has already made 2026 a season to remember. The Brazilian won all seven of his Diamond League races, lowered the 400m hurdles world record to 45.80 in Zurich, won the Diamond League Final, and then added the World Athletics Ultimate Championship title in Budapest after beating Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm. With almost every major goal checked off, Dos Santos is now looking toward next season with an even higher ceiling in mind, a mindset that makes him sound a lot like Masai Russell.

Dos Santos has now revealed just how much further he believes he can push the 400m hurdles. Asked how close he was to the limit after his record-breaking 45.80 in Zurich, the 26-year-old made it clear that he does not see the mark as his ceiling. “We’re far from our limit,” Dos Santos said. “The time that I run and say, ‘This is my limit,’ you’re not going to see me next season. I’m excited to be able to run 45.6, 45.4. I can’t give you a number, but I know it can be faster.”

Those comments put Dos Santos in a similar mindset to Russell, who has enjoyed her own record-breaking campaign in 2026. The American smashed the women’s 100m hurdles world record in Zurich on the same night as Dos Santos, running 12.09 to take 0.03 seconds off Tobi Amusan’s previous mark. Russell has also made it clear that she does not believe her own world record represents her limit.

Earlier this year, she said that breaking the 12-second barrier was possible for her, adding, “I feel like sub-12 is definitely possible…when I turn 28, 29, 30 and when I get even stronger, faster and even more experienced, I think we will start to see 12.0s and 11.9s.”

The comparison becomes even more interesting because Dos Santos himself brought Russell into the conversation when discussing his own world record. “I knew I was able to break the world record,” Dos Santos said. “I knew I was able to run 45 and deliver. But as Masai (Russell) was saying the whole season, when you do a sprint or hurdles, you can’t plan the world record. You need to be able to have the perfect time, good track, perfect shape.”

His confidence has also been backed up by the level of his performances throughout the season. Before breaking the world record, Dos Santos had already lowered his flat 400m personal best to 44.38 and won four Diamond League races in four weeks, beating Karsten Warholm in three of them. He then returned to Brazil in July and won national titles in both the 400m and 400m hurdles, running 44.60 in the flat event and 46.48 over the barriers. It was his first time racing on home soil since 2019.

Then came Zurich. Dos Santos stormed to 45.80 in the 400m hurdles, taking 0.14 seconds off Warholm’s previous world record of 45.94, which had stood since the Tokyo Olympics. Warholm finished second in 46.69 as Dos Santos produced the defining performance of his season. He followed that with another major victory in Brussels, winning the Diamond League Final in 46.70, before producing 45.98 to beat Rai Benjamin and Warholm in Budapest and claim the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship title. The time was the third-fastest performance in history.

Yet despite openly talking about the possibility of running 45.6 or 45.4, Dos Santos was not ready to map out his 2027 season immediately after Budapest. “The main thing is my vacation now,” Dos Santos said. “You need to be in the present. If I finish my last race and think about next year, (then) when am I going to enjoy this and digest everything I’ve done?” Interestingly, the confidence Dos Santos carries into next season was not always there.

Dos Santos’ difficult road back to the top

In 2022, Dos Santos was at the top of the 400m hurdles. He went undefeated throughout the season, won the World Championships in Eugene in 46.29, and finished the year as the world champion. But the following season brought a major setback. Dos Santos suffered a meniscus injury to his right knee and underwent surgery in February 2023. The injury kept him out for much of the season and forced him to spend months working his way back.

He returned to competition in July, opening his comeback in the flat 400m at the Silesia Diamond League, where he ran 44.73 for third. He later returned to the hurdles, but he was still some way from the athlete who had dominated the event the year before. At the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Dos Santos finished fifth in the 400m hurdles in 48.10. 

The 2024 season was when things began to change. Dos Santos struggled early in the year, opening his hurdles campaign with 48.75 in Atlanta, but his form gradually returned. By the end of May, he had produced a 46.63 in Oslo, showing that his speed was coming back. He then reached the Olympic final in Paris and won bronze in 47.26, matching the medal he had claimed at the Tokyo Olympics three years earlier. Later that season, he won the Diamond League Final in Brussels in 47.93.

The comeback was not only physical. “It was not easy mentally to get back at this level, but I am happy that it all worked out,” he said. By 2025, the progress was even clearer. Dos Santos won silver at the World Championships in Tokyo in 46.84 behind Rai Benjamin, while his season’s best of 46.65 came in Eugene. He finished third in the World Athletics rankings, behind Benjamin and Karsten Warholm.

The results showed that Dos Santos had gone from fighting to regain his old form to once again challenging the world’s best. Then came 2026, when that rebuilding process turned into something much bigger.