The world record holder in the 400 meter hurdles, Warholm, will start the season in Oslo

The world record holder in the 400 meter hurdles, Warholm, will start the season in Oslo

World record holder in the 400 meters hurdles Warhol starts the season in Oslo

Zlatá tretra Ostrava, 59th annual athletics meeting, September 8, 2020 in Ostrava. Karsten Warholm of Norway won the men's 400m hurdles.

Oslo – World record holder in the 400m hurdles Karsten Warholm will open the season on Thursday at the Diamond League meeting in front of a home crowd in Oslo. The sold-out stadium will also be watching another Norwegian star, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who will run the 1,500 meters less than a week after his all-time best time for the two miles. The meeting will be graced by other world record holders Armand Duplantis, Yulimar Rojasová and Wayde van Niekerk. No Czech athlete will start.

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Stickman Duplantis will make his first start in the Diamond League this year. The Olympic champion and world champion has jumped only twice outdoors this season. In Los Angeles, he did not get over six meters yet, but ten days ago in Hengelo, he rose to the top of this year's world charts with a performance of 611 centimeters. In Oslo, where he has won in the last three starts, he will face, among others, the Filipino Ernest John Obiena, who joined the “six-meter” pole vaulters at the weekend. He finished exactly 600 centimeters in Bergen.

The first diamond meeting of the season awaits the Olympic champion and three-time world champion in the triple jump Rojas. So far, the Venezuelan has competed outdoors only at the Spanish club championship, where she stayed four centimeters below the fifteen-meter mark at the weekend. This performance also safely put her at the top of the charts and she will be the favorite in Oslo.

After six years, she will run the 400m race in the Van Niekerk Diamond League. The last time he appeared in a meeting of the highest category was in Monaco 2017, a year after the world record and triumph and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. That was before the serious knee injury the South African star suffered in the fall of 2017 in an exhibition rugby match. It took a long time to get together, he appeared on the runway only in 2020 and since then he has been trying to get closer to his former form. This year is the fastest since the injury, the time of 44.17 from the national championship in April ranks him second in the world charts. At the beginning of June, he ran only four hundredths slower in Kingston

In the 100, a duel between the two-time distance world champion from Jamaica, Shericka Jackson, and the elite sprinter from the Ivory Coast, Marie-Josée Ta Lou, is expected. Femke Bolová from the Netherlands will be the clear favorite in the 400-meter hurdles race.

The main program in Oslo will start at 8:00 p.m., and the shot put competition will start at 5:30 p.m.