Olympic champ Karsten Warholm to open outdoor season on home Oslo track
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Norway's Karsten Warholm is preparing to make his outdoor debut this season at the Oslo Diamond League meet on May 30, 2024.
PHOTO: AFP
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OSLO – Karsten Warholm will make his outdoor debut this season just 57 days out from the Paris Olympics, when he takes to his home track in Oslo on May 30 in the sixth stop of the 15-meet Diamond League circuit.
The Olympic 400m hurdles gold medallist and world-record holder began his season at the world indoor championships in Glasgow in March, pipped to gold in the 400m by Belgium’s Alexander Doom.
But since then, the Norwegian has been training hard in new shoes as he prepares to defend his Olympic title from Tokyo.
“I’m feeling good. I think that everything right now has gone according to plan. I couldn’t ask for much more,” he said.
“I hope we can use our knowledge and experience to make sure that we come to Paris with the best shape possible.”
Following his Oslo outdoors debut, Warholm will compete at the June 7-12 European Athletics Championships in Rome, but was more coy on what will come after that ahead of the July 26-Aug 11 Olympics.
“I’ll have to see. I’ve tried to find like the perfect balance. I don’t like to set the calendar and to fill the calendar very early. I like to take the decisions as they come and try to do the smartest things,” the 28-year-old said.
Warholm will be up against Brazilian Alison dos Santos and Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands in Oslo, a duo guaranteed to bring the best out of the home favourite.
He will be one of six reigning Olympic champions on show in the Norwegian capital.
The others are Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson, who will compete in the 200m, Italian Marcell Jacobs (100m), Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen (1,500m), Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei (5,000m) and Sweden’s Daniel Stahl (discus).
Warholm, Stahl, Jackson, Ingebrigtsen (5,000m), Cheptegei (10,000m), Burkina Faso’s Hugues Fabrice Zango (triple jump) and Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic (400m) all also won gold in the 2023 world championships in Budapest.
Another star of Norwegian athletics, Ingebrigtsen came second to world champion Josh Kerr of Britain at the Eugene Diamond League meet on May 25.
But he was pleased with his outing after a slow comeback from an Achilles injury and oozed confidence as he eyes double Olympic gold in Paris. “It’s a very good start, definitely better than I was fearing,” he said after the Eugene race, looking ahead to the 1,500m and 5,000m in Paris.
“I’ve been injured and lost a lot of training, so you never know 100 per cent how it’s going. But I know that every day from here I’m going to be better. I think I’m going to win both in Paris.”
The men’s 5,000m promises to be a fast one as Cheptegei lines up against Jacob Kiplimo, Yomif Kejelcha and Hagos Gebrhiwet among others.
In the blue-riband 100m, Jacobs will be up against Jamaica’s 2011 world champion Yohan Blake and American Brandon Hicklin, whose 9.94 seconds this season is the quickest of the field. AFP
