“The King” returns – Carl Lewis to Bislett as guest of honour

Olympic 100m champions like Carl Lewis, Linford Christie, “Mo” Greene and of course Usain Bolt have all displayed their considerable talents in the “short sprint” in the Norwegian capital. This year the tradition of fiercely contested, quality 100m races at Bislett will be evident again.

Unfortunately Usain Bolt, the great Jamaican sprinter and a big favourite in Oslo, had to decline the invitation to compete as a slow recovery from injury has subsequently delayed his training and forced him to defer the commencement of his 2014 competition schedule.

The 100m race will bring together a field of athletes who have already achieved significant title victories in their careers and the event will be especially relevant to those contesting the prestigious European Championships 100m title which will be decided in Zurich in August.

France’s Christophe Lemaitre is the reigning European Champion, a winner of the IAAF’s Continental Cup and has regularly run under 10 seconds. He has a wealth of experience at major Championships (including a World Championships bronze medal at 200m) and will be looking to reduce his personal best of 9.92. Lemaitre will get no peace and plenty of competition from his countryman Jimmy Vicaut. The powerfully built twenty-two-year-old Frenchman improved his best time to 9.95 last season, and he has the potential to be much faster this year.

In terms of potential, the young British athlete Adam Gemili appears to have all the necessary credentials to take the sprinting world by storm. Like Lemaitre, he is a former World Junior Champion, but surprised the athletic world with his explosive 19.98 for 200m at the World Championships in Moscow last season. The London-born athlete, who three years ago was a youth player at Chelsea Football Club, has a best 100m time of 10.05 which is clearly in for some substantial revision this season and most likely in this Oslo Diamond League race.

Another British athlete who will be the subject of considerable interest in Bislett is the World Indoor 60m Champion Richard Kilty. He was a virtual “unknown” in Sopot when he showed enormous composure to record one of the biggest upsets of the recent World Indoor Championships. With a victory in a personal best time at his first major Championships, it seems that Kilty can only continue his rise to prominence and this 100m will provide a further opportunity for him to advance his growing reputation.

Whilst the merits of the younger athletes in this 100m event are apparent, there is another competitor involved with considerably more experience than the rest of the field combined. The seemingly ageless Kim Collins is a former World and Commonwealth Champion at 100m and has numerous other medals in his personal collection. However, last season at the age of 37, he achieved a new personal best of 9.97 in Lausanne, which is a World Record in the masters category for athletes over 35 years of age. What is seriously scary is the fact that when Kim Collins made his first major final at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, his youngest rival at Bislett, Adam Gemili, was contemplating his first day of school. Some 14 years later, Collins is still not only a contender, but will certainly give the younger generation something to chase.