World’s Greatest Athlete in Bislett

He (or she) who can run the fastest, jump the highest or throw the furthest? However, the multi-events athletes can rightly claim that they can and do excel in all these aspects of our sport. There have been many examples: Jim Thorpe, Bob Mathias and of course more recently Dan O’Brien and Daley Thompson.

So it is fitting the current claimant of the title “World Greatest Athlete”, Ashton Eaton of USA, makes his Norwegian debut at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games.

Eaton is supreme in his domain with gold medals at Olympic Games, World Championships and World Indoors. He holds the world records for Multi Events both indoors and outdoors and is the only athlete to score over 9000 points in the Decathlon.

Like so many of the multi-event superstars before him, Eaton is a world class hurdler in his own right and will tackle a relatively new experience for him; the 400m hurdles. When you look at his prowess in the basic event groupings, hurdling and 400m sprinting (he has run 13.35 at high hurdles and sub 46 seconds at 400m), then it seems obvious the Eaton is a natural at this discipline. So far he has contested the event on three occasions, improving his personal mark each time, and already boasts a best of 49.69. It is said that Eaton tried the 400m hurdles one day whilst training for the Sopot World Indoors and mastered the difficult stride pattern at his first ever attempt.

Ashton Eaton will not have things all his own way at Bislett stadium with a very energetic field confirmed to compete against the Oregon based superstar. South Africa’s L.J. Van Zyl is a World Championships bronze medallist who is coming back to his best form, as is USA’s sub 48 second runner Johnny Dutch. However, the patriotic and well-informed Oslo crowd will be looking to encourage their new Norwegian record-holder Øyvind Strømmen Kjerpeset, who is shaping like a medal contender in the European Championships in Zurich later this year.