Norwegian begins his 2021 Wanda Diamond League season on home soil in Oslo in his specialist 400m hurdles event on Thursday

Karsten Warholm will be looking to make his mark ahead of the Olympics with a good performance at the Bislett Games in Oslo on Thursday (July 1).

The 400m hurdler was recently pushed down from No.2 to No.3 on the world all-time rankings after Rai Benjamin’s 46.83 victory in the US Team Trials in Eugene. So Warholm will be trying to re-establish himself and maybe even get close to Kevin Young’s long-standing world record of 46.78.

It is Warholm’s first Diamond League race of the summer although he did race once indoors at 300m and this summer broke his own 300m hurdles world best with 33.26.

In Oslo he faces, among others, Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos, Ireland’s Thomas Barr and former European champion Yasmani Copello in front of an estimated crowd of 5000 spectators.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. It’s very special to do this in Norway and it’s probably the biggest meeting in this country since the start of the pandemic,” he says.

The 400m hurdles races are among the top events in Oslo because Femke Bol of the Netherlands leads the entries in the women’s event. Very few American athletes have so far made the trip over to Europe yet following their Olympic trials but instead Bol faces a field that includes Ukrainians Viktoriya Tkachuk and Anna Ryzhykova.

Elsewhere, Mondo Duplantis, Sam Kendricks and Renaud Lavillenie will clash in the men’s pole vault, while Daniel Stahl leads the men’s discus line-up and Maria Andrejczyk heads the women’s javelin field.

In the women’s 5000m, Hellen Obiri is up against Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi, Tsehay Gemechu and Fantu Worku, while Britain’s Eilish McColgan also competes after recently earning Olympic selection for 5000m and 10,000m.

British athletes Jazmin Sawyers and Abigail Irozuru are also in action in the long jump where they face world champion Malaika Mihambo, world indoor champion Ivana Spanovic and European indoor champion Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk.

Adelle Tracey, meanwhile, goes in the women’s 800m with world champion Halimah Nakaayi, Oceania record-holder Catriona Bisset and Hedda Hynne of Norway.

The Dream Mile has been renamed the Svein Arne Hansen Dream Mile in memory of the former Bislett Games meet director and European Athletics president who died last year, and it will feature Kenyan Trials winner Charles Simotwo, Marcin Lewandowski of Poland, Stewart McSweyn of Australia and Charlie Grice of Britain.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen was due to race but has withdrawn with a sore throat.

The women’s 100m includes US trials runner-up Javianne Oliver, Marie-Josee Ta Lou, Tianna Bartoletta, European indoor champion Ajla del Ponte and Britain’s Daryll Neita, whereas the men’s 200m field is led by Andre De Grasse.

The Oslo meeting is followed on July 4 with the Diamond League in Stockholm followed by Monaco on July 9, Gateshead on July 13.