Olympic champion Karsten Warholm opens the outdoor season on Oslo’s home circuit

OSLO – Karsten Warholm will make his outdoor debut this season, just 57 days before the Paris Olympics, when he takes to his home track in Oslo on May 30 in the sixth meeting of the 15-race Diamond League circuit.

The gold medalist and world record holder in the Olympic 400m hurdles started his season at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March, where he was tipped to gold in the 400m flat by Belgian Alexander Doom.

But since then the Norwegian has been training hard in new boots that he hopes will give him a faster finish as he prepares to defend his Olympic title in Tokyo, where his sensational performance was one of the highlights.

“I feel good. I think everything has gone according to plan now. I couldn’t ask for much more,” he said.

“I hope we can use our knowledge and experience to ensure we come to Paris in the best possible shape.”

After his outdoor debut in Oslo, Warholm will compete in the European Athletics Championships from June 7 to 12 in Rome, but he was more coy about what will happen next in the run-up to the Olympic Games from July 26 to August 11.

‘I’ll have to see. I’ve tried to find the perfect balance. I don’t like setting the calendar and filling the calendar very early. “I like to take decisions as they come and try to do the smartest things,” he said.

Warholm will face Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos and Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands in Oslo, a duo guaranteed to get the best out of the home favorite.

He will be one of six reigning Olympic champions to appear in the Norwegian capital.

The others are the Jamaican Shericka Jackson (200 m), the Italian Marcell Jacobs (100 m), the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen (1,500 m), the Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei (5,000 m) and the Swede Daniel Stahl (discus).

Warholm, Stahl, Jackson, Ingebrigtsen (5,000m), Cheptegei (10,000m), Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso (triple jump) and Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic (400m) all also won gold at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest.

Ingebrigtsen, another star of Norwegian athletics, finished second to world champion Josh Kerr of Great Britain at the Eugene Diamond League competition last weekend.

But he was pleased with his performance after a slow comeback from an Achilles injury and exuded confidence as he aimed for double Olympic gold in Paris.

“It’s a very good start, certainly better than I feared,” he said after the race in Eugene, looking ahead to the 1,500 and 5,000 meters in Paris.

“I’ve been injured and lost a lot of training, so you never know 100 percent how things are going. But I know I will get better every day from here. I think I will win both in Paris.”

The men’s 5,000 meters promises to be fast, as Cheptegei will compete against the likes of Jacob Kiplimo, Yomif Kejelcha and Hagos Gebhriwet.

Jacobs will take to the starting blocks at 100 meters against Jamaica’s 2011 world champion Yohan Blake and American Brandon Hicklin, whose 9.94 seconds is the fastest in the field this season. AFP