Top quality Javelin always a highlight at Bislett

In this year’s ExxonMobil Bislett Games the spotlight will again focus on the men’s Javelin as part of its Diamond League program and Meet Director Steinar Hoen has assembled a highly credentialed field of the world’s best competitors.

The news from Oslo is very positive concerning Norway’s former dual Olympic and World Champion, Andreas Thorkildsen. After two seasons of battling injury, Thorkildsen has finally declared himself fully fit and ready to regain his World title in Moscow later this year. Reports from his warm weather training camp and a steady performance in his first competition of the year at the Diamond League in Doha indicate that the Norwegian will be a huge threat in any competition this season. He will be especially determined to make an emphatic statement on his home soil.

Another athlete returning from injury is the 2011 World Champion Matthias de Zordo. The left-handed German had serious problems last year but is also very positive about his fitness for the coming season. He was the dominant thrower in the world in the latter part of 2011 and has a best of 88.36m from the Diamond League final in Brussels.

Former World Champion, Finland’s Tero Pitkämäki, has started 2013 in great style with a throw of 86.40m at his South African warm weather training base. He is a favourite of the Bislett crowd having won the meet on a number of occasions.

Last year’s winner of the ExxonMobil Bislett Games and the Diamond League, Vítězslav Vesilý, had the biggest throw in the world in 2012 (88.34m) and after his definitive victory in Doha last Friday, he will be looking to outdo the performance of his coach Jan Želesný in the Bislett Stadium. In 1992, Želesný threw a distance of 94.40m which was a World Record at the time.

Possibly the competitor attracting most interest will be a young athlete with the shortest personal best of all the competitors. Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott established his personal best of 84.58m last year but he did win two very important titles: the World Junior Championships and in what was a great shock the London Olympic Games. In a tense final in London, Walcott held his nerve to secure a remarkable victory and bring Trinidad and Tobago its second Gold Medal in Olympic history (Haseley Crawford’s 100m in 1976 being the other). Walcott is clearly the future of this event and it will be interesting watching him compete against the more experienced opposition. He opened his 2013 season with 84.36m to show that he will provide a serious contest in Bislett. In the first Diamond League meeting of the season in Doha he came sixth with 79.79m. He will get great backing from the knowledgeable Bislett fans who are generous in their support of all the throwers.