Expected and guaranteed quality — Bislett High Jump

Truly the field at Oslo is the best in the world. Seven of the assembled competitors boast personal bests of over 2m, which in the Women’s High Jump remains the standard of great quality.

Current Olympic and World Champion Anna Chicherova (Russia) has already been over 2m this year (2.02m in Beijing) and will be looking to establish a points lead on her competitors in the Diamond League with a victory in Oslo. She has a personal best of 2.07m.

There will be enormous attention associated with the return of Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic, The two times World Champion who has a personal best of 2.08m has been missing from competition for some time but has at last overcome her injury worries. In 2013, she is looking to re-establish herself as the foremost woman’s high jumper in the world and the competition at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games is an important step down that path. She took victory in the New York Diamond League on 25 May but the cold, wet and windy conditions there made quality jumping difficult. In Oslo the conditions are far more conducive to “high” jumping.

Svetlana Shkolina gained her first international medal last year when her personal best of 2.03m secured her an Olympic bronze. After an agonizing number of near misses at title events, the Russian will approach 2013 with great confidence following her success in London.

Spain’s Ruth Beitia was on the verge of retirement, but a stellar year in 2012 has seen her extend her career. She won the European title in Helsinki and her leap of 2.00m in London last year earned her an unlucky 4th place – her best result in a major championship.

Of enormous local interest is the performance of Norway’s Tonje Angelsen. The twenty-three-year-old had a break-through season last year, winning a silver medal at the European Championships and producing a new personal best of 1.97m. Can Angelsen maintain her improvement and challenge Hanne Haugland’s national record of 2.01m?

Great curiosity will surround the appearance of Italy’s Alessia Trost. After winning the World Junior Championships last year, she stunned the local fans in Italy when she cleared 2.00m at an indoor competition. It appears that again the Italians have another quality female high jumper in the tradition of Simeoni and Di Martino.

As usual the Bislett stadium will provide the atmosphere and the setting for another extraordinary competition. The only World Record in High Jump at the “world record track” came in 1955 when Iolanda Balas of Romania established a world junior best of 1.70m.